Display posts from previous

Sort by

"Peter, do you know where Stephen is?" Meriana asked. She was Peters wife and Stephens mom, she also had a daughter named Evy. Her brown eyes looked at Peters as she entered his home office. After fifteen years they came to this point where their lives began to get a bit more relaxed inside the colony city.

"Well the most logical place is school, I mean... it's Monday morning ten o'clock. That means school has already started."

"Ok, but school just called to ask where he is, Evy doesn't know either"
She laid her hands gently on his shoulders, as she watched what he was doing. Peter was an absolute genius with computers, but she didn't understand anything about those... Things. "Do you want some coffee by the way?"

"Yes please." he turned his head to look at his wife as he replied to the more serious question "If he isn't at school then I have no clue where he might hang out, relax Meriana... all kids rebel against their parents, especially when it's about school. but I will talk to him when he comes home of course."

Meriana left the room again to get some coffee for Peter and herself, Peter went back to work on his computer. Working as a server administrator was boring work sometimes, but at least you were allowed to work at home. Meriana brought him a cup of coffee, Peter smiled to her.

"I shall call hi.........."

suddenly she was interrupted by a heavy blasting sound that shook the very foundations of their house, then screams... Meriana rushed to the window to see what was going on. She froze by what she saw, the administrations centre on the other side of the plaza was utterly destroyed. Big pieces of concrete were flying through the air, people were screaming and running from the building with their hand above their heads. One man was crawling and clawing desperately with his hands while his legs were crushed under a big piece of metal, blood gushed from his wounds so that he would soon be relieved from this agony.

"what the F... server just went off-line."

Peter went over to Meriana and stood next to her looking through the window, he was nailed by the sight too. A shell came down from the sky, hitting the school right in the middle. Peter shocked by the sight of it "what the hell is going on" Meriana began to panic "Evy is in there, oh my god Peter... Evy is in there", her desperate voice hit him. Meriana sat back against the wall and was bursting out in tears. The colony Alarm went off, producing a high frequency tone followed by a male voice "We are being attack by an unknown force. All militia, gear up and head for the government centre. All women and children to the government centres underground bunkers.". The alarm barely ended his sentence when Peter saw gunfire on the edge of the colony, flashes of tracer bullets and shouts of desperate people. The attackers were shooting while they ran into the Colony, fleeing people went down randomly. Wounded people were dragged away and kicked into a truck, treated like stock readying for the butcher. Already some defenders were putting up a fight, their poor fighting gear would in no way protect them sufficiently.

"Meriana, go to the Government centre, I will gear up and aid the defenders."

Peter grabbed Meriana's arm and helped her back on her feet, she was crying and shaking. Another heavy blast, they were smashed against the wall "now Meriana, GO!"

Meriana walked out of the room while she was grabbing her Phone, her hands began to shake when she found out that the connection was dead "come bloody piece of shit, just let me make a call". Peter unlocked his militia locker, and geared up. A helmet that kind of looked like a world war one helmet, but upgraded with a safety glass and augmented reality. A Semi automatic rifle, 200 rounds in 20 magazines and a bayonet. And for protection all militia had bullet protection Kevlar vests, at least it was some protection. With this poor fighting gear the militia were to hold the line until the Federal navy arrived, nobody could actually tell how long that would be. When Peter rushed outside other militiamen were putting up a heavy fight against the attackers which Peter could now identify as Sheromi, a human like race who split from humanity and cross-bred with another race into the abominations that they are now. Running toward the closest piece of cover proved challenging, he fell over a dead body, almost hurting himself with his bayonet. He quickly got up and ran forward. Another militiaman shouted "Peter over here", Although the sound of battle was very loud he still gave answer to that vague order. He instinctively went over there, there were some men he knew. The man who shouted was Bard, a neighbour. Unfortunately Peter never got the chance to say "hi", Bard was blown up by a Sheromi grenade. Bard's whole face was blasted away and three others fell as well. Peter was blown backward because of the shock, for a brief moment he looked at the sky and tried to overcome this sudden horror. He quickly grabbed his rifle, planted the back of the rifle in the earth to pull himself up and leaped into cover. Just where Bard was 10 seconds ago.

"dad!!!"

"Stephen, what are you doing here, where did you get that equipment."

A whistling sound and the explosion of a shell shook the ground, showering Stephen and Peter with dirt.

"grabbed it from a dead man." He nervously looked around while he held one hand above his head in a way of protection.

"Dammit son, I'm glad you skipped school... It's blown apart"

"I know, I went dirtbikeing with Brian and Donald, we heard explosions and gunfire in the distance. We went back here as quick as we could. Do you know where Evy is? I tried to call her but communications are off-line."

"No I don't know, but we better get out of here. Cover me while I try to look for others around"

Stephen peeked around the corner and saw the Sheromians running towards him. He pointed his weapon and "Bang!". Shot one Sheromian in the leg. He crumbled and the other two leaped into cover, leaving their shot mate lying in the middle of the street. He shot again, this bullet turned out to be a deadly one, blood spurted from his throadwound. The Sheromian went down and didn't move again, Stephen was a bit shocked about his sudden killer instinct but the adrenaline kept him sharp. The other two returned fire upon Stephen so he had to hit his cover again, just in time to hear a bullet fly by his ear. A heavy shell exploded on the other side of the street, the fear that one of those shells could hit him was undescribable. Dirt was showering down on Stephen, some of the dirt sticked to him. Peter was down the street, signaling that he found some others and waved his hand to Stephenn, "We'll cover you!". Stephen ran towards the others, they bravely got out off cover and lay a line of bullets through the street to give him safe passage. He made it, but two men were shot. Meanwhile the Sheromi had brought in an APC, which was now spraying bullets trough the street, more Sheromians stepped out from the back. "We have to fall back to the government centre!". shouted one of the men, a tall and muscled guy. The rest of them agreed and they turned around and began to run, leaving their cover behind to flee to a safer spot. Stephen was running right behind his dad, he saw at least 5 men beating the dust. What was left of the group turned right at the next junction, sweat was dripping down his back and made his outfit all sticky. After 50 meters they stopped and lined up. They could all hear the screams of the wounded militiamen who fell during their fall back run. Horrified screams and gunfire... then silence, the Sheromians had brutally finished them off. The first 12 men knelt down, and the other 12 stood behind them. All pointing towards where the Sheromians would be coming from. "get ready... here they come boys!" shouted the same man who gave the fall back order before. Everyone was nervous, most men couldn't hold still their rifles, their hands were shaking. The sun was shining brightly upon their bayonets and helmets, it made the bayonets look extra lethal. Stephen was breathing heavily and so was the man next to him, he was scared as well. Stephen tried to aim but his rifle was heavy, and his bayonet was making the whole thing even more inaccurate. At least 20 Sheromians came around the corner and all the militiamen opened fire, they screamed and shouted as their rifles shot the bullets. A hailstorm of bullets hit the Sheromians, two of them dropped dead to the ground, others were crawling wounded on the ground. Low voiced screams indicated that they were in pain, Stephen found it most satisfying and it made his ego rise. The Sheromians were shocked, they didn't expect their fleeing foe to face them right around the corner. Before the Sheromians could line up their weapons Stephen suddenly shouted "CHARGE!!!" and without question all the men charged the Sheromians head on. Stephen ran about 10 meters behind his dad, as he jumped through a small dust cloud. Suddenly a shell exploded right next to the spot where his dad was, Stephens heart skipped a beat. Peter was blown to the right, his left leg was gone and his face was crushed. Stephen went on charging, he jumped through the dust of the explosion. A Sheromian appeared right in front of him, he fired his weapon in a reflex and stabbed the Sheromian with his bayonet "Get down you Bastard!" he shouted. The militiamen who survived the charge clashed with their opponent. Now they were on the advantage because the Sheromians didn't have bayonets. The standing Sheromians were taken care off easily, their screams of pain echoed trough the street. He pushed a crawling foe to the ground with his boot and stabbed him, ending his life instantly. Stephen saw an incoming enemy just in time to dodge him, he quickly turned around his axis and stabbed the Sheromian in his underbelly, fired his rifle and kicked him off his bayonet with his boot. Stephen looked around him, As the last one of the Sheromian foot soldiers slid from the bayonet of a militiaman, he shouted "Now everybody! Get the hell out of here... Back to the government centre!" . All the men began to run towards the government centre randomly, there was no sign of any organization. The roaring sound from the Sheromian APC's engine could already be heard very clearly, but Stephen knelt down next to his dad to honour him. He stood up again with a lump in his throat. "I'll redeem you father, even if it's the last thing I do" He grabbed his father's helmet and began to run, he heard the rattling sound of the APC's heavy automatic gun, he looked back. What he saw gave him a shiver on his back, his mother Meriana... naked, Tortured, walking emotionless, she was being brutally pushed into the APC along with some others who were captured as well. Stephen looked ahead of him again and kept running, still in disbelief by what he just saw. "what are those bastards doing. what do they want from us... could they be slavers?"

Stephen now had a visual on the government centre, it was heavily reinforced already. The militia turned it into their head-quarters, "if I could just reach it!" A shell exploded just to his right and another one left in front of him. He was blown to the left, His sight was suddenly blurry and his hearing was muted. A high frequent beeping tone tearing through his head, he grabbed his head due to the pain. He was creeping through the field of corpses that lay in front of the government centre, Sheromian and human. "Curse those bloody Sheromians, I'll hate them forever" .Stephen pushed himself on his feet and wandered about towards the militia head-quarter, unaware of the battle around him, his sight came back to normal and his hearing was getting better but still dim. He heard vague shots around him and voices far in the distance, there was also a flashing light to his right, a hollow "boom" then wind and dust. "must have been an explosion" he thought to himself. He saw two militiamen in the doorway in front of him holding out their hands, one of them was saying something but he couldn't hear what he said. It was vague gibberish. Suddenly he felt a terrible pain in his right leg, he felt to the right as he tried to grab the hand of one of the militiamen. They grabbed him and pulled him inside. Another shot in his back, his body began to shake, and he was spitting some blood. He heard people screaming and shouting. Lieutenant's barking orders, and weapons were fired. Every few second there was a heavy explosion to be heard. "out of the way! we got a wounded here!" shouted one of the militiamen who carried him. He was laid down on a stretch bed en things began to fade, "I made it..." his eyes began to roll, everything seemed to be in slow motion. "Hey! stay with us son..." A man hit his hand against his cheek "You're not going to die on my watch" he said, he had a white bracelet decorated with a red cross, then everything went dark.

Stephen opened his eyes and looked around. The battle was still raging, "so it wasn't a nightmare." He got up a bit, planting his elbows behind him. Next to him he heard a familiar voice, "Hey little brother."

"Yes I am... those monsters tried to drag me away, then the militia came and scared them away. One of them injected something in me"

"Have you told the doctors about it?"

"No, now I get those weird seizures. I had three already, it gets worse every time" Stephen got off his bed but fell to the ground because he forgot he had a leg wound, down on the ground he grabbed his shoulder where the bullet left his body. He got back on his feet and walked towards his sister, she grabbed his arm. Suddenly a little a small stream of blood was coming out of her eye, "Stephen, I'm dying" She said scared and half crying. "No Evy Stay with me, Stay with me... DOCTOR HELP!!!" He pushed her to his chest, and stroke his hand through her hair, trying to comfort her even though he somewhere knew it didn't work. She began to puke blood on his clothes, The doctor ran inside. "Stephen don't leave me!" she screamed "I'm right here sis" there spurted blood from her mouth as she breathed heavily "STEEEPHEN!!! WHERE ARE YOU!!! I CAN'T FEEL YOU!!!" she threw up blood again "NOOOOO!!!!" she was clawing his back with her nails. Her body began to shake all over, another Seizure. Stephen held his sister close to his chest, then she was limp as a rag doll. Stephen began to cry, holding his sister in his arms. Laying his head on her head. "I'm sorry about your sister Stephen" was the only thing the doctor said before he was already being summoned by someone else. Stephen Laid his sister down and stood up, his body was hurting very bad. He stumbled toward a window, and looked outside, he was on the second floor. He saw the village square in front of the government centre, militiamen outside were putting up a fight, men were running aimlessly around and were shooting at the enemy. It was a complete chaos, men were falling by the dozens. Wounded militiamen were crawling around, body's were covering the entire square and at some places the corpses were three layers thick. Stephen saw a militiaman, his jaw was blown off. The man was wandering the square slowly, looking at nothing.

Stephen was given a rifle by a militiaman, carelessness overtook him as he realized that he had lost everything today. He took his rifle and put it on the window frame, he picked his target and shot "Bang!". Picking targets proved challenging, the Sheromians were taking good cover. He heard heavy gunfire from the roof, it was louder than everything else. Some militiamen managed to turn the AA-guns towards the ground, this way they could hit ground targets. Dull pops and tracer bullets came down from the roof towards a Sheromian APC. Within seconds it was filled with holes, he heard the men shouting on the roof as the APC exploded "Roo-ah, Scratch one!". They kept firing and some Sheromian infantry fell as well. Stephens ears began to mute again because of the heavy sounds of the AA-gun, but it was totally worth it. The point and shoot pattern repeated itself a few times. From the corner of his eyes he saw something that caught his attention. A young boy came running out of an alley towards the government centre. He was chased by two Sheromians, one of them shot the boy in his leg. The boy shouted in pain en fell on his knees, the other Sheromian hit the boy on the back of his head with his rifle. Stephen aimed at one of them and shot, hitting a Sheromians shoulder. The other one shot the boy through his head then they took cover. Some militiamen saw it as well and began to fire at the Sheromians, soon they were dead. But the boy was killed, he was too late. "Incoming rocket!!!", shouted a militiaman next to him. Stephen dropped to the ground as the rocket hit the window frame where the shouting Militiaman just was. Another rocket hit something just above them on the roof. Stephen heard the men screaming, apparently the AA-gun was destroyed and the men who operated were wounded. The first rocket completely destroyed the window frame and the man was blown away, his right arm ripped of his body. He was screaming, and looked shocked when he saw his arm was blown off. Stephen rushed over to him and pushed him to the ground "MEDIC!!!". When he looked down to the man he saw it was already too late, he was dead.

A loud noise shook the building, Bombers were flying over very low, loud explosions could be heard in the distance as they dropped their bombs. tanks rolled through the streets, firing their heavy main guns upon the Sheromians APC's. It appeared to be effective, "Finally the Federation has arrived" Stephen said to himself. Drop ships were dropping of Rifleman, who instantly attacked the enemy. optimistic voices and shouts were echoing through the building. It was an epic sight to see how many soldiers came to aid them, it was an entire army. Sheromians were fleeing in all directions... Humans had the Victory, but Stephen lost everything, He couldn't see the bright side of it.

Some moments later Stephen Forrester was sitting with his back against the wall, his elbows on his knees and his hands on the back of his head. His eyes staring emotionless to the ground. "what the hell just happened today, Mom died, dad died, Evy died, So many died... why not me?".Evy's Blood was still wet and all over his clothes, he couldn't tell if the bandages on his wounds were drained with his or Evy's blood. He heard footsteps closing in

"Hello soldier, how are you holding up"

"I'm not a soldier, I'm a mechanic, a citizen, a useless colonist... but a soldier... no"

"Well, you militiamen put up a hell of a fight. I'm Captain Neil Davids, I came down to check upon the survivors"

"Hmm... Survivor, yeah... I survived, but lost everything. My mom, dad, sister... everyone is dead. how many survived anyway?"

"237 people survived, 5.000 were killed, 47 wounded and 35.000 were taken prisoner, number is still rising"

Stephen wasn't reacting when he heard the number, The reality of it slowly got through to him. "way to many" He thought, Stephen wanted to go away from this hellish place. "Why so few wounded" he asked, "They took the wounded with them" Davids replied "probably slavers".

"I don't want to stay here any more, take me with you on your ship."

"Are you sure, the colony could really use a skilled mechanic with the rebuilding project."

"I most certainly am, I need to get out of here, everything I was died today"

"Hmm... Ok, Grab your gear and meet the others at the pick-up spot just next to this building."

Stephen grabbed his rifle, gave his sister a kiss on her forehead... he sat beside her for a brief moment. The pain she endured was still written on her face "Pure agony" he thought to himself. Then he stood up and walked away, he would never forget the sight of his sister. "She died in so much pain... and her eyes bled..." his stomach turned around about three times, he threw up all over the floor. "Hey easy son", it was captain Davids again "no man can see the things you saw today and be left untouched by it... it's ok, just take your time." Stephen was calmed down by Davids's words. He looked up, took a deep breath and wiped the tears from his eyes. "Thanks... captain" Stephen walked down the stairs and went outside. It was a complete horror scene, the smell of burning corpses was overwhelming, but Stephen did his best not to throw up again. When he arrived at the pick-up point, he sat down. He was playing with the grass a bit, "Hey Stephy, Tough son of a bitch huh..." Stephen turned his head

"hey Brian... Brian O'niel. You have no idea how happy I am to see you, So few survived... I was afraid I wouldn't see a known face again."

"You're not getting rid of me that easy"

"what about Donald?"

"Died..."

"I'm Sorry man"

"he was your friend too"

"Yeah I know... You Joined up the military as well?"

"Yup, what else should I do? Kill myself? No one I know survived today, my whole life blown to bits. Besides, Donald asked me to when he sacrificed himself, his exact word were: Make 'em pay Brian, don't make me die for nothin'. "

"The same goes for me... I promised to redeem my father."

Brian threw his gear next to Stephen's and sat down beside him. "Oh by the way." Brain took something from his pocket and gave it to him. It was a picture of him with his mom, dad and sister. "Where did you get it?" Stephen asked. "I saw your sister in the hospital... I'm sorry about her... but they found this picture upon her body and they said you left already, so I took it."

"Thanks man..."

The two didn't say anything for a long time, when finally the word came. They were Going.

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Fri Nov 29, 2013 2:18 pm, edited 5 times in total.

two figures in white coats stood in a dark room, a man and a woman. they observed a man in a bright lit room by staring through a one-way mirror, both holding a data pad in their hands. "He's sitting quietly now for about 5 minutes, but his rapid eye movement and half open mouth suggest that another attack will strike him soon." said the man. "His blood pressure is 240/280 and rising, the attack will strike now." said the woman. She barely ended her sentence or the patient began to scream and hysterically walk through the room, his eyes wide open and his hands holding his head. He freaked out and wildly waved at the direction of the light source in his room, but it was too high for him to reach. He then tried to escape the room by running against the wall, with a muted bash he found out that that was beyond his ability as well. He tried to claw his way out, without taking any notice that he was damaging his nails and fingertips. "His heart is racing like an idiot, he is totally out of control." said the woman, as she slowly walked back and forth in front of the one-way mirror window, she was a bit nervous. "We should blow some nerve gas into the room to stop his attack, or he will seriously damage himself.". "I suppose it will be best for the subject's health to stop it, though I would really like to see what happens when we let him be." said the man. The woman walked towards a control panel in the back of the room, she quickly put her data pad in one of her pockets. "remarkable..." the man continued "did you press that button yet?". " no I haven't, hold on" the doctor replied. "Then wait! look at this" said the man, the woman turned around and walked back to the one-way mirror window, her eyes wide open in disbelief. "His attack stopped, without the nerve gas?" she asked. The man nodded, "doctor, I think our treatment is working on this one." said the man. The female doctor quickly grabbed her data pad out of her pocket, and looked at it in ecstasy "His heart rate is normal, blood pressure is normal. According to the data he's asleep now, I think we're ready for the final step in the process. We should take the student with us, this might be very interesting for her as well.". "indeed" answered the man "I will tell the guards to tie him down on the table, we will commence the final stage in approximately 15 minutes."

A red sky with black clouds, moving in al directions. Beneath it was a vast wasteland, a silhouette of a man arose on the horizon. he walked slowly towards Stephen, reaching out his hand to him. He had only eyes, with which he looked through him. Another silhouette appeared, after a brief moment another one. They encircled him and looked at him, but they did not touch him. Instead they kept their distance while they circled around him, again and again. Stephen heard a whispering voice in a language he couldn't identify. slowly he began to understand what the voice said. "Join our mighty empire... my brother." Then only silence and darkness remained.

Stephen woke up due to the sound of closing footsteps, his eyes looked around in disbelief. His mind was playing tricks on him, "what was reality? and when was he really awake?" he asked himself as three faceless people gathered around him, Stephen tried to move but his arms and legs were tied. They were wearing white coats, mouth caps and hair caps. Fear overtook him as he lay there looking in their emotionless eyes, they had no intention of looking back at his. He tried moving even harder, turning his head and bending his spine, the ties weren't loosening. The faceless people remained focused on preparing the examinations. "please remain calm mister Forrester." It was a male voice, firm and solid. "What are you doing to me you bastards!!" Stephen grew even more scared, his sweat rolled of his face as they prepared some kind of needle with a chip attached. "I'm not going to say this again mister Forrester, hold still or we will inject you with morphine. We can do this the hard way or the easy way, your call." The faceless man, who had no intention in answering his question, was putting on his latex gloves while staring at his examination result papers. "I thought you would only take me with you so that I can fight for revenge, not ending up in a frakking test lab!" The professor gave no reaction and Stephen realized that he had no choice but to obey, part of him wanted to stay awake out of curiosity what they were going to do to him. The faceless man frowned and looked at his colleague, astonishment was written in his eyes. "You can put away that injection doctor, subject 43 is giving some remarkable signs of cooperation. We will try the test without narcosis, it should give us better results." The doctor nodded at the faceless man and laid down the syringe. "As you wish professor" said the doctor, a female with a soft voice. The professor now turned his attention to the third person at his table and observed her for a brief moment. "Student, are you sure you want to stay with us on this one?". "I'm sure" said the student, another female with a warm and kind voice. "After all he's from the same colony where I came from." Stephen noted that she was quite nervous, she fiddled with her hands and looked at the doctor and at the professor with uncertain eyes. "please, just make sure he survives, there are way too few survivors as it is. Let him be the first one who lives." Stephen was shocked by the sudden idea that he might not survive this test, "What is wrong with me?" he asked himself. Too scared to move he watched and waited while the professor attached electrodes to his body, a cold gel was rubbed over his naked chest by the doctor.

The following minutes were the longest, most uncertain and painful of his life. The doctor grabbed a device and put it down on Stephens chest, it felt cold and in a reflex he flexed his chest muscles. "Relax mister Forrester, I'm just checking your organs.". The doctor turned her attention from Stephen to the professor, "I think you can attach the neural data readers to his brain now professor, I'd like to see how his brain reacts to the rest of the examinations."As the doctor requested he attached some paste electrodes to his head, and turned on a screen for the doctor to watch. "Looks all good to me doctor, now let us proceed to the next phase." The professor said and the doctor nodded in reply, "Lets reset his heart rhythm.". The doctor gave him some kind of injection, slowly the world around him turned dark. He felt a terrible pain in his heart, it had ever more difficulty to pump blood. His brain and heart were hurting ever more as his lungs began to fail. "His lungs are stopping, I'll give oxygen supply." the doctor said as she put an oxygen mask on his face, cold air flowed into his body. As his heart was barely able to hold on he felt a pain so great, like his chest was ripped open and crushed with a giant maul. "His heart is fibrillating, give him ED quick!" said the doctor, "Quickly now, we're losing him.". An electrical shock pierced his torso.

Stephen regained consciousness after a timeframe he could not recall, the only thing he did know was that his chest was hurting like hell. "And there he's back again, finally." said the doctor as she watched her monitor and data pad. "Just some blood samples and we're done here." After a short moment Stephen felt a cold needle going through his skin, tapping several vials of blood and placed in some sort of testing machine. The only thing the professor did was nodding and making quick notes on his examination result form, there was no way to know if the professor was happy with the results or not. The electrocution caused by the ED's electrodes was fierce but short, he felt the burns where the electrical shock entered and left his body. The professor took no notion of his pain, instead he injected a chip in his body. He grabbed his data pad and began to read the incoming test results and nodded, "The patient is in a positive and stable state now, no trace of any infection left." The doctor and the student sighed, Stephen felt they were relieved by the test results. "Follow me doctor, we'll check up on subject 56." Said the professor. "You will stay here and wash him Carol, he is safe now." Said the doctor to the Student as they walked away towards the exit.

The student nodded and walked towards the sink and filled a bucket with hot water, from a cabinet below she grabbed a sponge. She walked back and placed the bucket next to the table Stephen was laying on, she wrung the sponge. Carefully she dabbed his forehead with the nice warm sponge, she removed all his sweat and fears of dying. With a fresh sponge she scrubbed the gel from his chest, a dark red lock of hair came from under her white head cap. Carefully she took care of his shot wound, Stephen moaned a bit when he felt the hot water dripping on the wound. She gave him the most caring look in the world as she laid her hand on his forehead in a way of telling him to calm down, her green eyes looked at his as if she knew what he has been through. When she was done she cleared away her used materials and walked towards the exit. She told the guards she was done, they greeted her and let her pass. The guards removed his ties, Stephen was unbelievably relieved that he was alive and freed of his chains.

After Stephen got dressed by the guards orders they escorted him to the wing where the other survivors were housed, Stephen walked between the two guards. Corridor after corridor, door after door. Everything was dim lit, Stephens eyes were having a hard time to adapt after the bright light shining in his face during the examinations. He noticed a lot of things which were quite primitive, at least for a spaceship. Curtains, dimmed lights, non-automatic doors, he couldn't help it but to ask "Why does this spaceship looks so primitive in contrast with spaceships I've seen in movies and such?". One of the guards began to laugh while the other guard turned his head and looked at him with goggling eyes, trying his best not to laugh as well. "This is a scientific and military vessel mister Forrester, energy aboard this spaceship is very precious so we need to use every tiny bit of it efficiently. That's why we have curtains and dimmed lights, it saves a lot of energy. The over romanticized movies you've seen are everything but realistic, it often results in a lot of laughter amongst this crew.". Stephen nodded, that sounded very logical indeed. "Why waste precious energy when a human can do these kind of things easily by himself." he replied. "Very good mister Forrester." said the guard with a broad grin "You're a quick learner, I should recommend you to military intelligence.", sarcasm dripped from his words. After several minutes walking the guards said "Here we are, just walk through that door. I assume several survivors will be there, they will explain the rest to you and tell you where you sleep." As Stephen walked through the door several heads turned and faced him, but there was one in particular that made him extremely happy.

"Stephen... you tough bastard!"

"Brian... I'm happy to see you too."

Brian walked to Stephen and stood in front of him for a brief moment, he then grinned and gave Stephen a firm hit on his shoulder. "Glad to see you're still among the living."

"So you knew I was in that cell?"

"You were in quarantine"

"Why was I kept in quarantine and why weren't you?"

"You were shot remember? Sheromian bullets are toxicant, after some time you'll become one of them."

"So now I'm not infected anymore? Was it the same stuff that killed my sister?"

"Since we were attacked by Sheromians and you were infected by them I decided to do some research on them, I've found this really helpful explanation for you to read."

Sheromians: A species who were created by a crossbreeding project between Humans and Bulkors. This project led by the human doctor A. Enghelbert was of great success, he was the first one who created a new self aware species. The way Sheromians reproduce is by cloning themselves, cloning facilities are a vital part for the survival of their species. After decennia of slave labor the Sheromians exterminated their superiors, the human faction of A. Enghelbert and the Bulkor species. With both their superior parties gone their breeding project became out of control and resulted in an overpopulation of their birth world, they aggressively expanded their borders to house their population. Only a few years back another way of adding to their population has been introduced in a shocking way, entire human colonies began to mutate and transform to Sheromians due to their toxic weapons. The right amount of toxic will result in a successful transformation, overdoses will result in death. The transformation process will take three months, in which the victim will fully transform both physically and mentally. Sheromians are ultra aggressive and are known for their brutal slave trading and population harvesting.

Stephen was rubbing his hands on his face after he read this, this was really disturbing and it told him how lucky he was. Stephen told Brian what happen when he was in quarantine, Brian was shocked to hear how far gone his friend was. His only reply was "So they actually killed you and then brought you back to life, what's the point?" Stephen didn't know. Later that day dinner was served, it was their last dinner on board of this spaceship, tomorrow they would be on the military academy space station. The room they entered had two tables in it, both filled with food. Just now Stephen realized how hungry he actually was, he felt like he could attack that pile of food and eat it all by himself. Brian and Stephen sat down beside each other, the rest of the survivors were unknown to Stephen. Though some of the faces looked familiar, he couldn't recall their names. Everyone started filling their plates as soon as they sat down, Stephen happily followed that example as he felt his stomach was begging for food. The food was consumed in silence, everyone was still mourning their loved ones who were killed or taken. Stephen mourned too, he thought about his dad and sister and how terribly their lives ended. And somewhere deep down inside he hoped that his mother Meriana was still Alive, or at least what was left of her physical shell. After a shower Stephen got to bed early, his mind was blurred and tired. Now that he felt relatively safe, sleep overtook him very soon. The next morning there was breakfast, after that they were asked to make ready for arrival at the space station where Brian and Stephen were going to sign up for the army, as a lot of other young people were going to do too. those who were too old or to young tried to start a new life on Earth, the planet which the military spaceport was orbiting. Everyone was very exited once they arrived, all had heard stories about earth before but no one has ever seen her for real. Captain Neil Davids was also at the exit door to where they could walk into the spaceport, everyone was pushing to be the first in line.

When the spaceship was finally docked and Captain Neil Davids gave the word, all the survivors walked through the exit door, all but one. When Stephen headed for the exit Neil Davids stopped him, "Wait a moment mister Forrester, the professor and the doctor would like to check your status before you walk in there." Stephens heart pounded in his throat as he saw the doctor and the professor walking in his direction, "Not again" he thought. As always they were wearing their white coats and their mouth and hair caps. "I will wait for you on the other side of the door Stephen, good luck." Brian said, Stephen could hear the fear in his voice as he slipped away. The doctor checked his heart rate and eye movement, the professor just pierced his brain with his eyes. "Looks OK to me, professor." the doctor concluded, as she stepped away from her patient and lowered her mouth cap. "Good... Good... We wouldn't want you to get hurt by the guards if our treatment failed after all, would we?" Said the professor with his eyes on Stephens, without any movement as if they were made out of glass. Stephen didn't knew where to look, finally he decided to look at the floor. "Where's Carol?" he asked doubtful. The doctor smiled "Carol is not with us anymore." Stephen was shocked by this news, he looked at the doctor in disbelief. "You mean like... dead?".

"No, like... she just walked through that door." as she pointed at the exit, she was looking back at him with a playful smile. Stephen realized that he was blushing very hard. "Where they playing a game with him?" he thought.

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Fri Nov 29, 2013 2:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The whole group was now walking through the main hall. Stephen had to say that it was quite a beautiful space station, lots of potted plants and trees, "would they've been trying to create a natural oxygen supply?". It gave the idea of a forest, a recreation of a self sustaining habitat, "does the entire station look like this?" Brian asked. The main hall was quite big and a lot of people were walking around, some gave them a contemptuously look. Groups of recruits were marching around followed by squad leaders or lieutenants, they barked orders and shouted at everyone that didn't marched in line perfectly. There were also a lot of people with data pads walking around, lots of voices were filling the air. It was a very busy place, everyone looked like they had something important to do. In the middle of the main hall there was a fountain which was abundantly spraying water, benches were place around it. One side of the hall was an enormous glass window looking right into space, Stephen saw fighter spacecraft flying in formation and behind that in the distance was "Earth". The home world of humanity. The whole scene looked very prestigious, he couldn't help but to be in awe. The bunch of fresh recruits Stephen was walking amongst had no formation at all, they looked rather pathetic. A group of savages wrapped in bandages.

The survivors were led into the sign up room and ordered to sit down and to wait for their turns, John and Brian sat beside each other.

"I don't know. When we came back and entered the colony, we lost you. Donald and I were swallowed up in a fight, there was no time to look for you. Donald sacrificed himself by creeping under an enemy APC with a bit too much grenades, blew the damn thing sky high. It gave us a chance to fall back to the government centre. What happened to my ma and pa... I don't know, I try not to think of what might have happened to them."

"I'm sorry man." Stephen said, while he was searching for his family photograph. Brian didn't respond, he was in his own mind. Stephen looked at the photograph of his family while Captain Neil Davids was talking with the woman who was about to give them their sign up papers. They nodded to each other, Neil Davids left the room and the woman walked towards them.

"OK, listen up boys and girls. You all have to fill in this form in order to become part of the Federal military and start your Federal military training program. I want you to fill them in to the best of your ability, and no funny answers... these are serious papers." She gave all the new recruits a form. Stephen looked at his form and grabbed a pen.

The rest of the form were standard questions about health and education.
Stephen was done with his form and waited for Brian to finish. When Brian was done with his form as well the two friends walked towards the lady who gave them their forms. "Here ma'am, as you requested". The woman looked at the papers, "Stephen and Brian. Basic training quarters B14, you will share your room as requested by Captain Neil Davids, Breakfast is at 7 o'clock, basic training starts at 8 o'clock in classroom C8."

After they had been escorted to their new room Stephen and Brian installed themselves in their new quarters, a bunk and a table with two chairs. A sink and a pile of towels. That was all, but it was all they were going to need. They would be most of the time spending somewhere else in the station anyway.
"I'm very tired what about you?" asked Brian.

"Yeah... I could use some sleep as well, seems like tomorrow is going to be a busy day." Brian sighed as he laid down on his bed.

"What's up" John asked

"Nothing serious"

"Hey, you don't fool me Brian, tell me what's on your mind"

Brian tossed around a bit in his bed, "It's about Eva. I never had the chance to tell her that I liked her"

"I'm sorry man, was she killed?"

"No, I don't know, and there's no way of telling what did happen, that's what's bugging me the most you know. Same goes for my mom and dad, it's like hell to not know what happened or where they are."

"Very well, as long as I don't hear strange noises in the middle of the night" Both of them laughed, for the first time in days. "And it felt good" Stephen thought to himself.

The First weeks on their military training were rather dull. Only theory, learning about tactics and military organization and physical training. They were told what the rules of engagement are and how to use them in different combat situations, and how to apply them to different races. They were also learning about the Geneva convention, only thing they learned about it was that it was used years ago. These days all methods one could think of were allowed in war, as horrible as one could think of. And final, the different combat groups were mentioned, and the teachings of military organization.

And the worst of all, history about tactics and warfare.
later on the actual training began, building up their condition and endurance, Stephen was also following his own mechanical lessons as well. Shooting practices, assault courses were an everyday thing. Manoeuvring in a fire team, manoeuvring in a squad and how to communicate at each level. Everything was handled, even the finest detail on how to tie ones boot laces. this went on for two years, by that time everyone was a walking military handbook. They had been training the past year for their greatest test in their training, this was called "The drop zone". Nobody seemed to know what it meant, at least the recruits didn't knew what it meant. Of course the other hardened and trained soldiers knew what it was all about but no one told them anything, to great annoyance to Stephen. Probably to make them scared, or to make the weak ones quit. It did have the desired effect in that case, all the new recruits were tense as the day of the test came closer. Some older soldier would rather call it the "rite of passage" to become a soldier, and all of the Eldeon survivors felt ready for it. Before this test the new recruits were put into four squads led by a squad leader, Stephen was supposed to lead one although he didn't have a clue who would be in it. These four squads were competing against each other in some sort of race, this wasn't an ordinary race of course. The winning squad would be rewarded and the winning squad leader was given the opportunity to lead the company consisting of those four squads. The squad leaders were picked by a theoretical test weeks ago and the four best scores were to be the squad leaders, because officers had to be more theoretical minded than the regular grunts so to speak.

Finally, after months of training their final test began, everybody was very excited about it. In the morning all the boys and girls were gathered for their breakfast, all of them were fully packed and ready to go. After breakfast they were send off to the shuttle bays, all 64 recruits entered the already waiting drop ships. The drop ships flew to a carrier drop ship which could drop the whole company at once, it was in orbit closely to earth's atmosphere. As soon as all the recruits were on board the carrier drop ship, they had their briefing. Captain Neil Davids was walking back and forth in front of a whiteboard while all recruits took their seats.

"Now listen up all of you, this is going to be THE mission, so don't screw up. After this missions you're considered soldiers, this is your final test." Nobody expected this would be the last test, Stephen heard some soft exited voices as all of them took for grant that this was not the end of their training. "what would happen after this" Stephen thought to himself "would he be sent off to a mission?" he could hardly believe it himself.

"You are to pick up a package, every squad has his own package to retrieve, the coordinates can be found on your squad leaders map. within the circular area drawn on your map you will be using your data pads GPS localizer, or DPL if you will, to determine what the exact location of your package is."Stephen looked at his map. A large circular area, with a diameter of approximately 50 kilometers was drawn on the map.

"Just pick up this package and bring it back to the rally point. The coordinates of the rally point will be inside your package. Just be sure to bring your package to the rally point, else you will fail the test. any questions?"

A soldier raised his hand "how long will this mission take?"

"Depends on you, but approximately 1 week." a shock went through the company "This is quite some time" Stephen grunted, "indeed" said Brian.

"What about food sir"

"You have to figure that out yourself recruit, but be prepared to hunt and skin animals." Neil Davids said with a broad grin.

Davids concluded the briefing and ordered everyone to stand by for landing, they almost reached the surface of planet Earth. Stephen had never been there before during training and was excited to see it with his own eyes. "ETA 10 seconds" Said the helmsman "prepare for impact". The carrier landed and the tailgate opened, the whole company stepped outside. There was a very lush and green vegetation consisting of palm trees and bushes, reaching high into the sky and covering every centimeter of dirt. You could only look a few meters into the forest because of the density of the plant life. The air was very damp and stuffy which made it hard to breath, Stephen knew that marching would be a hellish task in this environment. The forest was the opera of a nonstop orchestra of bird sounds, sounds of birds he never heard before in a variety beyond the counting. "what kind of place is this?" he asked to one of the other recruits, to which the other recruit responded "I think it's a jungle". Stephen looked at the dense vegetation "How are we going to find a package in here?" he said to Brian, who had been put in his squad. He opened his data pad GPS and looked for info about jungles, about the species that lived in it and the warnings about them. Until now he never heard of nor see such a forest before, not even in his wildest imaginations. All members of Stephens squad clustered around him, he was supposed to lead them. Stephen took his father's helmet out of his backpack and put it on his head. The mission proved to be quite hard indeed, Stephen had his first real experience with leadership. He had to make sure that they kept proceeding towards their goal, and his men needed food and water as well. He looked at his squad members and prepared to prepare them for their march into the green hell, when suddenly he felt like he was struck by lightning. Carol was one of his squad members. "Everyone prepare yourselves, we're moving out in five." he said as he walked over to her until he stood in front of her.

"you're the one who washed me after that test, aren't you?" Stephen asked her, she looked up at him in distraction.

"Yes... sir, I washed you, did I do something wrong?" Carol said as she put on her medical patch and her helmet with the big red cross, fumbling her dark red hair in it.

"No, no. Just didn't expect you to be a recruit as well. You're from the same colony as where I'm from, if I recall correctly?" Stephen asked, aware of his stupid washing question he nervously looked around.

"Yes I am, the professor and the doctor gave me the opportunity to make myself useful due to my medical education." Carol sighed as she remembered the examination, she looked back at him again with a crooked smile.

"Ah, I see. Well, thank you dear miss?..." Stephen asked, his eyes on her face. Beauty was the first thought to cross his mind seeing such an elegant, stunning girl.

"Burray, my surname is Burray. How is your shot wound by the way?" She said, trying to change the subject to a more comfortable one, she felt her skin getting warmer as she hoped her hardest not to blush.

"Fine, it healed very nice, only a small scar remained. Glad to have you with us doctor, we'll talk later perhaps" Stephen said, and understood her uncomfortable gesture.

The first two days were hard, they were marching all day. slept through the night with some men as lookouts. Stephen didn't trust this forest nor it's animals, though they proved to be good game he didn't trust them as long as they lived. He was sure the forest would turn against them at some point, and he didn't want to be taken by surprise. The squad also made a fire to keep predators at bay, according to his military handbook. Pretty quick Stephen found out that large predators were not the worst to fear, but it were the very tiny flying ones that kept them awake. during the nights the squad was tortured by thousands of little mosquito's, their buzzing sound drove everyone crazy. During daytime they walked, which was quite hard due to their exhaustion, progress was slow and took a large amount of energy. Everyone was sweating after 15 minutes walking, and no one trusted the little pools of water enough to drink from it or to cool down in it.

During day three the squad was under attack by hairy creatures while they were walking through the dense shrubbery. The enemy was attacking with sticks, stones and a lot of noise upon Brian's leading fire team who's reaction was "TAKE COVER, we are under attack". He grabbed his rifle and returned fire immediately, shot one of the bastards whereby the rest of the enemies fled. When they saw the enemy lying on the ground everyone laughed very hard except for Brian, brave Brian who courageously fought a pack of primates. At the end of the afternoon they walked into the circular area marked on their map. Stephen ordered to keep walking towards the centre of the area until it was time to set-up camp. "Brian, try to find that signal on your DPL." Brian nodded and activated his data pad, he touched some holographic buttons and waited as it tried to find any signals. "rest of the squad, grab something to eat and drink, there's a long march ahead of us tomorrow." Stephen sat down as well and grabbed his food package, this was the last they had. All soldiers were ordered to eat the same proportions and everybody was now eating their last meal of alliance food. After his meal Stephen began inspecting his gear. His father's helmet, his heavy body armour, and his semi-auto rifle which was an improved type that he used during the defence of the Eldeon colony. This Rifle had increased accuracy and its bullets were a bit heavier, granting way more damage than his former lighter rifle. After his physical military training Stephen didn't have any trouble carrying this heavy weapon. Stephen moaned as he remembered that he still needed to write an after action report on the last few days, as time flew by he reached today's action when he was summoned. "Stephen can you come over here for a sec?" It was Brian, Stephen walked over to his friend and was curious about his findings with the DPL.

"I was just mentioning your heroic action against our hairy foe's in my after action report. Did you find the package?"

"Hey not funny!! I didn't knew they were apes. But about the package, some interesting scanning's... here take a look"

They both looked at the data pad map. The map was focused on their current area and centred on their squad. The GPS tracker displayed the route they had already walked, they entered the area from the south. To their north west there was a single dot which Brian marked as "A". To their west there were more than 20 dots which Brian marked as "B". Between Marker A and B there were another 16 dots labeled "C". According to the scanner C was on route to A.

"what do you think Brian"

"I think someone else found our package as well. look, marker C is moving slowly towards A which I think is our Package , other dots at B indicate that C must have some kind of encampment at B."

"who could it be"

"I have no idea."

"Squad make ready to leave, our mission just got a lot more complicated, we have a race to win. Don't expect to sleep this night"

Every squad member suddenly packed up their gear and put their backpacks upon their back, some cantankerous voices were heard while they packed and got ready to move. As soon as everybody was ready to move Stephen received the scanner details from Brian and Stephen soon found himself running through the jungle. "Nobody is going to steal my package" he thought.

after another hour of running the squad stopped to catch a breath. "Ok everybody listen up, up ahead is some kind of encampment.... I think it's a camp to be more precise. Someone else found our package by now and they are now back on-route to the encampment. According to Brains scanning's there are still people inside the encampment. We won't take any chances, so we will capture this encampment. Red fire team is my fire team, blue fire team is brains. Green is Carols team and yellow is Bobby's team. Brian all got you your positions around the camp marked on the map. we will encircle the camp and close in, we keep in radio contact about our ROE. any questions?".

Bobby stood up and said "and what if they are going to shoot... I mean if they are not our allied platoon members"

"then you should be glad we have real ammo and weapons with us."

"But this is a military TRAINING"

"Indeed bobby, this is where we practice for the real deal. This could happen in a real mission too, then we're not going back whining either because someone else had the objective first. We will win no matter the cost, we WILL retrieve that package and we WILL be the first ones back."

"Roo-ah" was the sudden response off the rifleman squad, much to Stephens pleasure. It turned out that he had made a firm statement, he had the squad on his side.

The squad sneaked around the camp. It turned out to be some sort of village, only with a lot of armed guys. Stephen heard voices talking in some strange language he never heard before, Suddenly he heard Carols voice over the comm.

"team red, we have a Spanish guy in our team, he says they're going to be well rewarded if they retrieve the package.. how copy? over."

"Solid copy team green, let him get closer and see if he can eavesdrop some more on their conversation, how copy? over."

some silence before Carols voice said, a little angry

"seems they have hostages as well, what do we do now?"

Stephen switched his radio to squad channel so everybody could hear his command "close in 50 meters, all teams, how copy? over."

After every team confirmed that they completed their movement order Stephen said

"Now attack, strike from all sides."

Stephens rifle fired, A loud BANG! echoed the air as one of the man who was having the conversation was shot in his neck, because of Stephens heavy bullet part of the man's neck was blown away, the gap sprayed blood in the face of the other man. The neck snapped and the man collapsed, Suddenly gunfire could be heard from all sides of the village. The enemy was in a state of complete chaos, barking and shouting men ran around trying to take cover in time. The fire teams were executing their well trained small unit attack protocol, without the specific order needed to be given. one buddy team was shooting, the other buddy team moved on, knelt down and gave the enemy suppressive fire. Soon all fire teams were inside the village, Stephen got informed through the comm.
Stephens fire team made it to the edge of the village as well, the team members were very focused and handled the sudden change of action good. In the nearest building were 3 enemy's. He ordered 2 riflemen of his squad to fire three rounds upon the enemy from outside. Stephen and his buddy took place on either side of the doorway and attached their bayonets, "I'll take two of them, you will cripple the third one"
"aye aye sir"

When the other buddy team opened fire it was immediately answered with a lot of shouting, then the enemy returned fire. After three rounds Stephen and his buddy team rushed inside without shooting. When they were noticed by the enemy it was already too late, there was no way to react to them any more. The man closest to Stephen opened his mouth to say something but Stephen stabbed him right in his chest, the cracking sound of bones and the flowing blood made him growl of excitement. Another enemy turned around, his eyes widened in amazement while Stephen fired his rifle. The bullet went right through the body that was hanging on his bayonet, straight into the body of the man behind it. Stephens buddy opened a volley with his automatic rifle at the legs of the third enemy, who felt down and lost his weapon, he was crippled.

Stephen went over to the crippled man and pointed his bayonet on his throat. "Do you speak English?" he asked.
The crippled man looked up at Stephen, "Yes... please don't kill me" said the man half crying. The other buddy team walked inside, one of them began to examine the man and tend to his wounds. It was Terry the medic.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" Stephen asked.

"We are the luchadores por la lebertad and we were to guard the hostages"

"what hostages"

Suddenly Terry said. "They are some kind of Rebels I think, I've heard of these guerrillas who hide in the jungles"

"I didn't hurt anyone, please let me go" Said the man scared.

"You're not going anywhere, what about that package you're picking up?" Stephen was losing his temper.

"I don't know about that. It dropped here so we decided to take a look."

Stephen was called over the radio, he ordered his team to tie the man.

"This is team red, come in"

"This is team yellow. We cleared our side of the village and took one prisoner, over."

"Ok proceed towards my position, take the prisoner, over." About three second later Stephen was called again, this time it was Brian.

"Stephen, we found 27 civilians, they were tied, probably taken hostage by the looks of it."

"Ok team blue, escort the hostages to the village square."

Brian closed the channel. Now Stephen was radioing team green.

"team green? "

"This is team green, we killed eight. Regroda is lightly wounded."

"keep searching the village, make sure we didn't missed anyone"

"Aye aye"

After some time there was a minor gunfight outside, "Carol must have found some" Stephen thought. Shortly after that yellow team walked in leaded by Bobby and followed by the prisoner and his guards.
"Bobby, put your prisoner next to mine and guard them, I'll take my team and head over to the village square to meet team blue. Just stay here and wait for further instructions."

"Yes sir."

Stephen and his team walked towards the village square. It was a very small town with about 15 houses and dirt roads. In the centre of the village was a small open spot which the squad called the "Village square". There he saw Brian with his team along with the 27 hostages he mentioned.

"Hey Brian, I see you hooked quite a fish huh?"

"Yeah, we just bumped into 'em, killing them guards first of course." he said with a big smile.

Stephen turned towards one of the hostages. They looked hungry and filthy.

"Hello, my name is Stephen Forrester, federal military. Who are you?"

A man was walking forward until he stood in front of Stephen.

"We're federal as well, we came to aid the survivors of a terrorist attack on the city of Brazil. Once there, our headquarters were overrun by these rebels, they held us hostage for three weeks now. I guess they tried to trade us for ransom money."

"What a luck we ran into you then. We will take you out of here, but we need to obtain our objective"

"Which is?" asked the man."

"A package of some sort, a patrol of rebels stole it and they are now on their way to this village. I want to take them by surprise, and maybe you can help me"

"I don't see how"

"I want some of the bravest hostages to dress up like rebels and walk around the village square when the patrol gets back, that way it'll look like nothing happened. When they walk inside the village we will take them on the square by surprise."

"We're no soldiers"

"We'll do the shooting. When I give the signal your men just have to run to the closest building and hide."

"Hmm, ok then, what else."

"The rest of you will hide the body's and gather as much supplies as we can carry all together, I want everybody ready to leave when we've taken care of the patrol."

Suddenly there was gunfire and Stephen could hear Carol shouting "Lay down you son of a bitch!". followed by some Spanish gibberish. "I said lay down!" then a loud bash. Apparently she knocked her enemy to the ground with her rifle, Stephen marched over there.

When Stephen walked around the house. Carol's team was already tying down the captive. Carol was still pointing her rifle at her foe and Stephen could see that adrenaline was racing through her veins. She was breathing short and heavily "You three can take him to the other prisoners." Stephen said.

"Aye aye"

When they left Stephen put his hand on Carol's shoulder. "And you should calm down a bit." He said calm. "Yeah you're right" she turned towards Stephen. "Wow, she's pretty without a helmet" he thought. Her dark red hair that reached to her shoulders shone in the moonlight, making it look like it was actually purple. Her green eyes were looking at Stephen's, he suddenly found himself drowning in her eyes. Her soft edged round face was very cute, her small nose turned slightly red. Especially when she began to blush, suddenly she was turning a little red all over "Oops" he thought "I'm holding her look just a bit too long". Carol turned her eyes to the ground, while she softly bit her lip. His hand was still on her shoulder, Stephen totally forgot that it was still there. the wind was playing with her hair while it was wobbling a bit along her face. Her hair stroked his hand on her shoulder, suddenly Stephens hart skipped a beat. A lock of hair fell before her right eye, Stephen felt his cheeks began to glow. She looked up to Stephen again and saw him blush, she didn't expect this and she quickly reacted by closing her half open mouth and gave him the cutest smile, then she turned her head away. After a few seconds she said "We should go back to the others, mr. Forrester." She turned around and walked towards the village square. Stephen took a deep breath to make his heart rate drop to a lower level, then he followed her.

Back at the village square they decided to wait for the enemy in the biggest house adjacent to the village square. The disguised hostages were standing on the middle of the square wandering about a bit nervous. The squad, except for Bobby's team, had taken position in the Building. One hostage was in a building on the other side of the village square with a red smoke grenade.

Ten minutes passed by and they didn't hear a thing, just the soft voices of the men at the village square. Suddenly they heard voices at the edge of the village, loudly speaking and laughing. The enemy patrol returned and were now entering the village carelessly and completely unaware of the trap. They were fooled by the disguised hostages on the village square. When they entered the village square, everything happened very fast. The hostage in the building on the other side of the square triggered the smoke grenade, red smoke came out of the windows. The enemy patrol turned toward that building to investigate the smoke, this way they turned their backs toward Stephen and his squad. When Stephen said "open fire" over his radio, all the squad members lined up their rifles and began to shoot at the enemy. Screams of fear hardly exceeded the sound of the rattling rifles who utterly crushed their foe within seconds. All was silent after that, all their enemy's laid dead on the village square.

"Carol, get everyone over here, we're leaving in five."

"Aye aye"

"Brian, let's get that package."

It turned out to be a small box, with a tiny antennae. Stephen held it in his hand, investigating all sides of it.

"Brian, see if you can find out where our rally point is."

While Brian was busy decoding the signal from the strange black box, Bobby entered the village square. Soon followed by Carol and the hostages. Everyone was very excited and happy, they thanked Stephen and his squad for rescuing them. In the distance the sun came up and the sky was turning a little brighter. After a brief moment Brian jumped up shouting "I got it!". He immediately send Stephen the coordinates. "Only 14 Kilometres, I think this one is going to be a walk in the park." Brian said.

Reaching the rally point didn't prove to be any challenge indeed, after what they had been through nothing was challenging. It was like the beginning of their mission, walking in the jungle and cut yourself a way through the shrubberies until you reach your objective. It turned out that the rally point was an open spot in the forest, so that drop ships could easily land to pick them up. When everyone was at the open spot Stephen made the call.

The squad didn't have to wait very long, after 15 minutes the drop ships appeared at the horizon and landed in the open spot. Stephen sighed as he realized that these were indeed the correct coordinates. Everybody quickly stepped inside, Five drop ships were full. Stephen decided to step in the sixth empty drop ship, he wanted some peace and quite to think about what he would write in his after action report. He was waiting for the drop ships to take off when suddenly Carols face peeked inside. "Stephen!" She said smiling and quickly hopped inside and took the seat right next to him.
"Congratulations with your victory." and she gave him a quick kiss on his cheek.

Carol did her legs and sat snugly, while Stephen turned into some kind of statue. Stephen, who was completely dazzled, didn't know what to say, so they sat beside each other in silence until the drop ship shook a bit when it docked. Stephen startled as if he woke up from a dream as the doors of the drop ship opened with a hissing sound, they were greeted by captain Davids. "Forrester, what did you do down there!". So Stephen was bound to tell Captain Davids the full after action report immediately. It was at the end of his story that he noticed the man behind Davids. The man walked towards Stephen. "Hello Mr. Forrester, I think I heard enough. You did a great job for a new recruit and I'm offering you a chance to become even better." Stephen stood there speechless. "Sorry, I didn't introduce myself." said the man smiling. "I'm general Heinkel, you are put under my command in my glorious campaign against the Sheromian slave traders."

"That's an honor sir." And they shook hands.

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Fri Nov 29, 2013 2:33 pm, edited 4 times in total.

it was a cold dark night as Stephen, Brian and Terry were looming over a window frame, black forage caps helped them to remain warm and undetected by the people occupying the building on the other side of the street. The building on the other side was majestic in its appearance with a wall surrounding it, guards patrolled the main gate and checked everyone who tried to get in. Most visitors had expensive black hover cars with tinted windows, Stephen knew that something wrong and illegal was going on in there. The three guys had been observing this building for three days now from their hideout, and made a plan how to enter the building and carry out their mission. Their target was a man named Robert de Guille and he was responsible for leaking sensitive information to the Sheromians about unprotected human colonies, supposedly in return of money. The federal military investigations had somehow linked to this man and ordered general Heinkel, who was in charge of the campaign, to interrogate this man. General Heinkel was in command of a campaign to root out Sheromian slave traders for some years now, recently captain Neil Davids, Stephens CO, was put under general Heinkels command. Due to some random events Stephen found himself doing his first mission, A special operatives mission, one that wasn't allowed to fail no matter the cost. If there was one man on this planet that knew anything about the Sheromian slave traders home base it was Robert de Guille, living here in Paris. No one knew of this mission nor Robert de Guille's double agenda except some federal military officials, but here in the city of Paris not even the cops were given a heads up. Al this caution was due to the fear that someone might give Robert de Guille a tip, which could seriously endanger the mission success.

"Stalker one, this is observer, how are preparations for the mission coming along? over." Stephen suddenly heard through his headset, which suddenly awoke him from his obsessed "keeping an eye on" thing he did all day. Now the encrypted headset gave him a live stream audio link with HQ.

"Message to observer, this is stalker one, we are done with the preparations and await the execution order, over." he replied, as he tried to stay calm due to the excitement of the sudden possibility that his mission could be starting soon.

"Stalker one, HQ gives permission to carry out the mission from now on. break. Your mission is to capture the target and interrogate on point. break. After you interrogated the target federal military personnel will pick you up from the roof with a drop ship, how copy? over"

Stephen who heard his mission details a hundred times before sighed. "Observer, stalker one copies all, over."

"Roger that stalker one, good hunting, observer out."

With a serious face and a quick nod he told Brian and Terry that the mission was a go, silently they grabbed their rucksacks with their rifle and other equipment in it and moved downstairs. This time of night was the most quite one, traffic and other people were minimal. It gave them the best shot to infiltrate without people spotting them and call the police. Silently the three black figures crossed the small paved street on a safe distance from the main entrance into a small alley. On their left side was the wall that surrounded their targets building and a house was on their right side, softly they sneaked forward into the darkness. They talked their actions over a dozen times in their hideout so they didn't need to speak to one another out here, Terry grabbed a branch that fell of a tree and moved on behind the rest. They came to a place where branches of that tree grew over the wall, on top of the wall was a camera scanning the alley and turned around to see both sides of it. Silently Terry lifted a branch of the tree next to the camera with the branch in his hand, he placed it so that the camera couldn't turn back anymore. Brian grabbed a hook from Stephens rucksack and threw it over the wall, silent and quick all of them climbed up and let themselves fall down on the other side. Brian, who was last, put the hook back in Stephens rucksack, now they were hidden in the shrubbery along the wall. From inside the bushes Stephen saw a guard walking along the wall of the building, between the team and the guard was an open field with about fifty meters of grass which they had to cross. patiently they let the guard walk by and enter the building somewhere up ahead, now there was no one near. This was their chance and the team acted on Stephens quick hand gesture, silently they emerged from the bushes into the open. The three guys crossed the lawn while keeping as low as possible, never in his life Stephen was so afraid to get busted. His heart raced in his throat as adrenaline was pumped into his veins. Quickly he grabbed the hook from his rucksack and held it in his right hand as he moved on, after a lifetime they reached the building where a balcony hung over their heads. Stephen didn't linger for a second and threw the hook on the balcony, which didn't made a sound on landing due to the cloth wrapped around it. Quickly he checked if the hook was well placed before he began to climb. After a few seconds he reached the railing and grabbed a picklock from his pocket, the 800 year old building still had an old mechanical lock so Stephen expected no difficulty picking it. As Stephen tried his best with the picklock Brian came crawling over the railing, when he knelt beside Stephen they locked eyes and nodded. Now Terry was climbing up as Stephen managed to pick the lock, Brian grabbed his silenced heavy assault rifle with under barrel grenade launcher from his rucksack and kept an eye on the door where the guard entered the building. Slowly Stephen opened the door and peeked inside, behind the door was a long hallway with many doors on both sides. "Shit, Terry quickly." Brian said as Stephen heard the door where the guard entered opening again, a drunk guard left the building probably to splatter down on the lawn. After a few seconds the guard heard Terry growl while he tried to climb even harder and as the guard, in his excitement, tried to shout for alarm Brian's rifle made three whipping sounds. The guard fell to the ground and began to scream, Brian reached for Terry and pulled him up. Quickly Terry went inside followed by Stephen and Brian who closed the door behind them, by the noise Stephen could tell that the other guards reached the wounded man. Brian cursed himself for not killing the man as two bullets went through the door and penetrated the wall, missing Brian by a hair. "Quickly now, follow me." Stephen said loud as he and Terry grabbed their heavy assault rifles as well, both silenced as well and with holographic optics just like Brians. With their weapons pointing forward they moved through the hallway until they reached the staircase, below they heard quick steps of many men probably coming up. Luckily for the team they had to move up two levels to reach de Guille's suite, they went up and around the corner towards the their targets destination. Just as they went around the corner Brian placed a anti personnel mine on the wall. "That should delay them somewhat." He said with a grin.

By this time the alarms went off as the team kept moving through the hallway, here and there people left their room and quickly returned as soon as they saw the three heavily armed men moving towards them. Just up ahead de Guille was about to leave his room as well, the team recognized the short, fat and bold man leaving his room. De Guille looked terrified at the men as if he knew they were coming for him, he quickly went back in and slammed the door behind him. With his back against the door and his short feet planted on the ground he waited, as seconds went by. The team reached the door and tried to open it, without any luck. Stephen kicked the door with all of his strength, launching the man on the other side and the doors flew open. Guardsmen came around the corner and saw the team as they were just about to enter the room when the AP mine went off, with a loud blast hundreds of tiny bullets penetrated the men who stood in front of it. The explosion blew a hole in the wall on both sides of the hallway and parts of the roof fell down, the guardsmen who weren't hit did't dare to move on and grabbed their rifles. Brian grabbed a flash bang and threw it towards the men, then he followed Stephen and Terry into the room. Stephen walked towards the short man who was crawling backwards like a worm, he stopped him by planting his boot on his chest. He turned on his radio for live streaming and recording and began with his interrogation.

"What is your name fat man?" Stephen said extremely calm. The man looked from one team member to another in uncertainty, Stephen smelled his fear.

"None of your business... The guards will be here soon." The man said with an angry voice. Stephen turned to Brian an Terry.

"Cover the door for me please? This man here thinks the guards will help him." Stephen said laughing while he turned his attention back to the man on the floor.

"I think it is my business, tell me your name... please." Stephen continued seriously, he grabbed a chair and put it down in the middle of the room.

"Please sit down, if you cooperate you'll have a chance to proceed with your colorless existence."

The man stood up and stumbled over to the chair and sat down. "My name is Robert de Guille, if it is business you seek then speak your offer." He said as cool as possible. Stephen stood behind the man and saw drops of sweat rolling down his neck, he slowly walked around until he was in front of Robert.

"You give me the exact location of the Sheromian slave traders base of operations, in return I won't take your life." Stephen said with a tiny grin, Roberts face began to turn red.

"I will... never!" He said.

Suddenly a guard peaked through the doorframe, immediately followed by a spray of bullets from Brian's gun. The guard got back into cover behind the wall, but Brian's heavy assault rifles bullets penetrated the wall and took his life anyway. The guards in the hallway were shouting, producing a lot of noise in their preparations to assault. Brian loaded his 40mm under barrel grenade launcher in case another guard would have the guts to peek into the room, surprisingly they didn't.

"Don't test me Robert, don't you make me angry."

"I will never tell you."

Due to the time pressure of the police who could be here any time Stephen was beginning to get a bit strained, the fear that he had to break the mission without succeeding to get the Intel was driving him to act. Stephen punched Roberts cheek with his fist, a wad of blood came from his mouth and landed on the floor.

"Please cooperate. I don't think there's much room for negotiation." Robert spit blood as he looked at Stephen, his eyes filled with anger and hate. Stephen tied Roberts hands behind the chair to prevent him from resisting, Robert wasn't particularly happy with that and Stephen had to punch the back of his head again before he let Stephen tie him.

"I cannot tell you where that base is, they'll come to kill me if I do."

"And if you don't we'll come to kill you too, how unfortunate... don't you think?" Stephen said as Robert kept staring ahead of himself.

"No, I won't say it."

Stephen began to lose his temper, he walked to Robert's front and knelt down. Stephens face was just a few centimeter from Robert's, if he wasn't going to cooperate soon the mission would be in serious danger.

"Listen to me stubborn ass hole, we'll find that base eventually. With your Intel we might just find it a bit sooner, without it a bit later. We couldn't care less whether you live or die, to us you're just a fart in the wind. The question is... How dear do you hold your own life?"

Robert spit blood in Stephens face, he grinned. "You will never find it."

This was the straw that broke the camel, and given the look on Roberts face he knew he went too far. Stephen didn't move his face, but grabbed his side arm from the holster on his hip. "Fool..." he replied. Stephen stood up and removed the safety of his weapon, he shook his head as he looked at Robert. "Never saw such a foolish man in my life." he said and placed the barrel of the gun on Roberts knee pad. Robert bit his lower lip and tried to move his hands in vain, Stephen pulled the trigger. The blast of the gun was in perfect harmony with the cracking sound of the splintering bone, Roberts scream of pain filled the entire room, the guardsmen took it as a sign and tried another attempt to save their boss. Brian fired this under barrel grenade launcher, the explosion destroyed the entire door frame and ripped an arm of one guardsman's body. Terry fired several bursts of bullets through the hole in the wall which once was a door and by the sound of it they hit, the guardsmen who were able to fled. Robert was in agony and cried, tears were rolling down his cheeks. His entire body was shaking and he desperately tried to move his hand so he could grab his injured knee.

"Where were we again? Oh, I remember... Have you changed your mind yet?" Stephen asked extremely nice while he placed his barrel on Roberts other knee. From within the time pressure was gnawing at his self-control.

"Hercules system in the Parthenon cluster, moon B4." Robert said as he feared for his other knee. Stephen nodded quickly and ordered Brian and Terry to prepare to move out.

"Good man, that wasn't so hard now, was it?" He said as he stroked Roberts bold head.

"We really appreciate your cooperation mister de Guille, good day to you." Stephen was glad he had the Intel, but hated Robert and the idea that this man might have been the one that triggered the attack on his colony where his family was killed. It filled him with hate and before he knew it he fired his gun, obliterating Roberts other knee, the pain was almost too great for him to bear.

"That's for being a traitor. Choose your allegiance more careful next time." Stephen turned around an left the room, towards the roof of the building.

"Observer, this is stalker one, the mission is completed, requesting extraction, how copy? over."

"Stalker one, this is observer, extraction is enroute to your position ETA 5 minutes at the rally point. be advised, police force has surrounded the building, observer out."

Quickly they left the room and moved towards the staircase, covering their sectors and kept aware of any brave guards who might be laying an ambush. But no guard was left and they had an easy walk to the roof, outside they heard sirens of police hover cars. As they arrived on the roof Stephen couldn't help but to peek over the edge, armed police men took cover behind their hover cars and other pieces of possible cover. Behind the line of cars policemen were gathering on a hover assault platform from which they could assault the roof. Stephen hoped dearly that the drop ship would arrive soon, he wouldn't want to be picking a fight with these guys. After a brief moment he saw lights coming down, flying in their direction. Bystanders and policemen were pointing and looking towards them and wandered what those lights could be. Within one minute two drop ships closed in, one landed on the roof and the other one landed in front of the building. A federal official stepped out and walked over to the police officer who, apparently, was in charge, the two began to talk. Stephen didn't wait a second and ordered his team to board the drop ship, "the sooner he was out of here the better." he thought.

The tailgate closed and the engines began to roar, giving the thrusters enough energy to take off. Now they only had to wait until they arrived at general Heinkel's space ship, by now he and captain Neil Davids probably heard his interrogation audio stream and Stephen wandered if he did well. Also he did want to see Carol again, after weeks of constant dating due to the boring life on a spaceship he grew very close to her. Those three days without her made him longing to see her, in his heart he suddenly realized he loved her. When he would see her on the spaceship he would tell her, he promised himself. For a couple of hours they sat silently together, Brian was observing Stephen every now and then after his barbaric action after Robert gave them what they needed. Brian feared for his friend, he wandered what caused him to do this.

When Stephen, Brian and Terry arrived at the spaceship two people were waiting for them, some guy in a uniform and Carol in her casual clothes.

"Stephen!" Carol shouted as she began her running approach like an unguided projectile, her hair was waving like a dark red flame. She crashed into him, almost letting him lose his balance.

"Stephen, are you hurt?" she asked while she looked at him, she was worried about him before he could say there was nothing wrong.

"I'm fine Carol, there's nothing wrong with me." He stroked her hair and kissed her, her soft, warm lips on his and her delicate touch made him forget all that could possibly trouble him. Brian sighed annoyed as he face palmed himself.

"Come on! He didn't even kill someone, no need to go all war hero on him. I, for one, did kill people, and what do I get? not even a hug." Carol giggled as Brian continued.

"Your boyfriend was sooo annoying that he almost talked the man to death, that's not much material for a medal, is it?" He said with a broad grin on his face.

"That's because I'm the only one who actually can have a decent conversation and persuade my target to give me the info I need." Stephen replied, all laughed as all of the remembered the fear on the man's face and Carol just laughed along because she always laughs.

In the meanwhile the man in the uniform closed in on them and when he came close he began to speak, "Mr. Forrester, general Heinkel wishes to hear the after action report from you personally, if you'd follow me please." he said as he already turned around expecting Stephen to follow him. Of course Stephen did follow him, and the rest of the group remained where they were in awe. It was not an everyday thing that you got to speak with the Commanding General of a campaign, especially not with General Heinkel and especially not of you were just a Lieutenant. Stephen and the uniform guy walked to the situation room in silence, Stephen still wandered why he from all Lieutenants had the honour of doing such a mission for the general and why they had the honour of staying on his flagship. A ship which was much more technologically advanced than the one where he was cured from his infection.

when they entered the situation room Captain Davids and General Heinkel were already discussing something, they didn't noticed them entering. The room was dark and in the middle there was a round table with a 3d holograph map of the universe, some dots were labelled and some had different colours then the default blue the rest had. General Heinkel stood in front of it with his hands behind his back, a black uniform with gold buttons and a black Captains cap. before his right eye he had a leather eye patch and a scar along his entire right cheek, a war veteran to the bone.

"But General, listen to me please! Sending the 56th Infantry army group to assault that base is madness." Captain Davids said angry.

"No, not madness, it's either surrounding their base or risk the enemy general to flee. The 56th army group can react the quickest, they're in a nearby system. I want their general captured, dead or alive." he said annoyed.

"But general, you want infantry to assault a heavily fortified base? they cannot achieve that, we need some heavy planetary assault guns to attack such a base."

"They don't need to attack that base right away, they must dig in and make sure no ship leaves that moon, once we're there we will assault that base and capture their general. Besides, we cannot approach that base close enough for planetary bombardment because their surface to space cannons are way to powerful."

"Blockade that base?! The casualties will be beyond the counting."

"Their Casualties are none of my concern Captain! whether we achieve victory is. It's a soldiers job to die and it is my job to send them to a place where they actually can." General Heinkel concluded, what followed were some awfully quite seconds.

The uniformed escort coughed, "Sir, you summoned Mr. Forrester?" he said while making a slight bow.

"Yes, indeed I have." as he walked over to Stephen, they shook hands and nodded. "Now then Lieutenant Forrester, as you might have heard your info caused some.... questions. Please, I'd love to hear your after action report." General Heinkel said, Stephen gave him a full report with every tiny detail.

"Good, very good. I do have your next assignment right here, are you ready?"

Stephen nodded, "Yes, sir.". He followed the general over to the holographic map and looked at it, Stephen stood next to general Heinkel both glancing at the universe map. The general used his data pad to zoom in on a single celestial body, a moon orbiting a gas giant. "So, I take it that this is moon B4? A terrestrial planet in orbit of a gas giant?" Stephen Stated.

"That's correct Lieutenant, and that mountain you see over there is the enemy base. A network of tunnels underneath it and cannons firing from holes in the surface. This was once a mountain, now it's hollowed out and turned into a impenetrable fortress." the general sighed as he slowly walked around the holograph.

"And you blockade the mountain with the intention to capture their general? I suppose you mean to take away the source instead of just destroying the base general?" Stephen said while he stood still with his hands behind his back. Trying to get in the generals favor.

"Exactly, but he doesn't leave his bastion, so we need to enter and drag or smoke him out. And that's where you come in lieutenant Forrester, during our assault you and your men will penetrate that base and capture their general." both stood there silently after those words, Stephen realized that the odd of survival weren't particularly high.

"Any questions beforehand?"

"No, sir"

"Dismissed lieutenant, may the gods be with you."

That evening Stephen stood in his room looking out his window, staring into the nothingness between the bright glittering stars. Somewhere out there they would do battle, Stephen now knew about the scale of this campaign and some things were bothering him. To begin with, Army groups. Groups of armies, multiple groups of armies. It seemed a bit too much to assault a slave traders base, they tend to be rather small and definitely lacking the skill the hollow out an entire mountain to build a base in. Second, Robert de Guille. Why was he where he needed to be? why were the guards so demoralized, and easy to hold off. How did Robert knew the exact location of this base, and why was his Intel took for grant without validating it whatsoever? Suddenly he felt Carols arms grabbing him from behind and hold him tight as she laid her head to rest against his back, she sighed because she was concerned something happened to him.

"What's on your mind Stephen? did something happen to you down there? Did you see something terrible?" Stephen didn't move or said anything, "Come on Stephen, you can tell me.". Stephen turned around and faced Carol, still sunk into his mind deeply.

"I don't think this will be an easy fight against slave traders." He said. Carol frowned as she didn't understand what he meant.

"how do you mean? you got the base location didn't you?" Stephen rubbed his head as he looked at her.

"This base they talked about is an entire mountain, why put so much effort in building a secret base in a mountain and then give its location to some random guy of the enemy, Robert de Guille. Then there is the size of our force which is extremely huge and was just by chance in the neighborhood, it's just too accidentally advantageous."

"what do you try to say? I'm afraid I know what you mean but tell me anyway."

"I think Robert de Guille was not a contact for the enemy, I think they used him to create a casus belli. I fear all of this was made up a long time ago, to fool the people with just illusions about rooting out slave traders and that the base locations were known for a long time. I think we'll accidentally stumble upon a major enemy military base and be lucky we've send so much men, I think this is not going to be an ordinary battle but a bloodbath which will trigger an even greater war. I think this will be our last mission for our company has to infiltrate that base and capture the enemy general."

Carol was awestruck, for a brief moment she didn't know what to say. She saw the troubled man in front of her and felt pity with him, she figured a way to cheer him up. For days she longed to feel him, touch him. But he was down there in Paris and she was up here in space, now she had the chance to do what she wanted to do for soooo long. "Then we must make our time together even more special, Those might be our last moments together." She said as she elegantly walked towards him, foot by foot.

"What if the attack on our colony was not actually random? I wouldn't be surprised given the rapid reaction by our federal forces. If so, Who is the enemy really?... It doesn't matter now, soon we'll do battle and die."

Carol reached him and kissed his lips and then his cheeks. "don't worry now dear, That's all in the future. We're here now." She said and kissed his neck and went down lower with every next kiss. "Let me forget your worries, let me love you before it's too late."

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Sun Dec 15, 2013 1:39 pm, edited 3 times in total.

The drop ship carrying Stephens company was entering the atmosphere with roaring engines preventing them from crashing down, Slowly the tailgate opened so that Stephen saw a scene of the theater of war down on the surface of the planet. Wind was pulling at him as he walked to the edge of the tailgate, he held tight to a handle next to him. The rest of the soldiers were strapped in their seats and looked at their lieutenant questioning what he would see down there, where they would battle their foe and prevail gloriously. Stephen saw what he feared weeks ago when he heard about their strategy from general Heinkel himself, when he questioned himself about the truth of his superiors. Now his question got answered as he saw a massive mountain rise up into the sky, it was big and its hard rocky hull made it an impenetrable fortress and there it stood alone in a vast plain grassland. Around it with about a kilometer of nothing but wasteland in-between humans took fortified positions and were besieging the mountain, in their trenches they tried not to get killed by the continuous bombardment of enemy shells. The Sheromians were not the best soldiers in the universe but their artillery was devastating, causing dust clouds to cover the trenches and concealed what happened inside them. As they lowered Stephen saw orange flashes inside the dust clouds seconds later damped sounds of explosions, he saw flashes everywhere. The men inside became a bit nervous by the sound of explosions and not be able to see what was going on though no one dared to stand up and take a look, instead they talked with each other about what they could expect down there. The lower they got the more detailed the scene got, revealing his doom piece by piece. Now Stephen could differentiate several things that happened, he tried to understand what was going on down there so that he had his plan ready once they touched down. Figures ran from the mountain towards the trenches while under fire, he figured those were Sheromians attacking the besiegers. Tracer bullets flew over the vast wasteland and mowed down several attackers in their charge, the rattling sound of the machineguns was loud even up here. Stephen saw enough and turned around to begin briefing his company, he had withhold them long enough now.

"Listen up squads, down there our men are facing a heavy attack." He said loudly while he slowly walked through the cargo hold, suddenly everyone was silent and curious.

"As soon as we touch the ground we will aid in the defense, I won't lie to you... It's looking pretty bad down there, don't expect a warm welcome." Stephen had difficulty to surpass the noise of the explosions, gunfire and screams.

"I'll keep it simple to you guys! Follow me and do as I do, follow my orders and we will stand our ground!" followed by a resolute "Roo-hah". Stephen was pleased and confident with his men, they had what it takes to withstand their enemy. The proudly put on his father's helmet and grabbed his heavy semi automatic rifle, The gear that he would wear with honor.

The drop ship touched the ground and shook the men, Stephen almost fell to the ground but could just in time grab a handle to prevent him from hitting the ground. As soon as all the men removed their safety belt and grabbed their rifles he ordered them to disembark, in tight formation they walked out of the tailgate with their weapons at the ready. They were greeted by some wounded soldiers, one with a bandage wrapped around his head and another with a sling. "Welcome to hell lieutenant." They said and greeted the newly arrived soldier, they looked at the new blood with rejection. Stephen halted his company and addressed a nearby captain.

"Greetings sir, we've just arrived and are ready to aid the defenders, sir." The captain looked at him from top to toe, noting Stephens clean and fresh clothes.

"I see, just follow the dust and explosions and you'll see plenty to kill." The captain said and turned around again to continue his conversation with some other officers.

Stephen ordered his men to follow him, in runs the company headed for the trenches unaware of the hell that would await them there. After a few minutes marching they reached the trench, Everyone looked shocked. Immediately they were greeted by the whistling sound of a wailing shell, It exploded just on the other side of the trench and showered them with mud which stuck to their faces and clothes. Stephen drove his men into the trench one hand held his helmet and with one hand he helped his men to get down, he was the last one of their company to jump down into the muddy trench. Carol shrieked and threw herself to the wall as she figured out that the trench was covered with bodies, Sheromians and humans alike.

"Man yourselves, ignore it! Follow me and hold the line!" Stephen shouted to overcome the sound of battle that surrounded them, while he himself had to swallow too by the sight of so many dead.

Stephen walked in the middle of the trench with two men on both sides of him shoulder to shoulder, their weapons pointed forward and their sharp bayonets glittered by the flashing explosions of even more shells. Three Sheromians who jumped into the trench were taken care off in the blink of an eye while Sheromians on top of the trench wall were taken down by the men on the second row. Step by step they moved forward shooting at the enemy and finishing off wounded ones they came across with their bayonets, they walked through a corpse littered trench trying not to step on human faces. The blood soaked ground was all muddy and it made them sank up to their ankles, their feet were wet and muddy. A Sheromian jumped into the trench just in front of Stephen but before he even realized he was in front of a full company of humans a bayonet pierced his brain, ending his life instantly with the cracking sound of his skull. Blood and brains spattered the men on the first line, quickly they removed the mush that got in their eyes. Slowly they moved on towards an intersection, about 200 meters to go. Suddenly a multitude of explosions just about where they entered the trench created a theatrical lightshow, it's deafening shockwave made the ears of the men whiz. Just when they overcame the shock of the precision artillery and were about to move on again a lonely soldier came wandering towards them, he seemed totally unaware of his surroundings and with both hands he was covering his ears and scratching the sides of his head. mumbling words Stephen could only hear when the man pas by him and all gave him the room to proceed "Got to get out of here... Got to get out of here...". He went right through the entire company without noticing a single soul around him, Stephen heard of these men who were shell-shocked and felt pity for the man. Nonetheless he ordered his men to proceed and so they walked on, step by step. Less than 100 meters before they reached the intersection when suddenly a large group of Sheromians came running around the corner, as soon as Stephens company saw them the first line opened fire on the enemy. It took only a few seconds before the Sheromians began to return fire, what followed was a true bloodbath. The man next to Stephen was shot in his stomach and felt face down in the mud, he kept writhing as he was burying himself even further in the mud. The man who stood behind him filled the empty spot, he was moving forward towards the enemy. Stephen stopped him and pushed him back into the line. "Hold the line!!!" He shouted inaudible "Keep firing, Keep firing!!". The terror scene lasted for many long seconds as the battle dragged on, the sound of explosions, guns and screams was creating a horror symphony. Bloodied and wounded men tried to hold grip at the trench wall or where simply leaning against it looking at their wounds, Fallen comrades sunk into the mud and choked there or were already dead when they touched the ground. The valiant Humans fired their rifles continuously, splintering bones and skulls alike. The dreadful Sheromians fired their guns with lethal precision, killing men and women alike. The incessant volleys of shots by Stephens forces caused the Sheromian body count to rise with such rapidity that the decided it was for the best to flee. A last-ditch attempt by the Sheromians to go over the top was brutally suppressed by an even greater volume of bullets now that all the soldiers could hit them, most of the fleeing Sheromians didn't make it and their limp bodies slipped back into the trench. In the meanwhile Carol was busy tending to the wounded and tried to stop their bleeding, all the wounded men were injected with an anti-virus to prevent them from getting infected. Lots of work for the medics to treat the many penetrated lungs and stomachs, Soon stained blood was sticking to Carols face while she determinately continued her efforts to let no one die. Other soldiers helped the medics by sorting out the wounded and dead, they dragged limp bodies and digging between corpses to find a living soul. The bottom of the trench was like a can of rotting meat being covered by maggots, Stephen wondered how long some of these man were laying here already.

After the wounded were loaded on stretchers and the dead were honored Stephen ordered his company to return to base, the wounded were carried by the soldiers that weren't hurt so bad or not at al. Walking with stretchers through the muddy trench proved to be very difficult and the group proceeded slowly, looking for more survivors as they walked by. They passed a strongpoint, a wider part of the trench and reinforced with wood and steel. There another company was gathered around a crater, in it a young soldier who was barely 18 years old. The boy cried exuberant because both his arms were blown off, his lieutenant was standing next to him. The boy slowly dropped to his knees leaning against his lieutenant with his head, big teardrops rolled over his cheeks as his cry was touching the souls of the witnessing soldiers.

"Shoot me, sir... please." He said with a trembling voice whilst crying.

The lieutenant had to swallow the lump in his throat and grabbed his sidearm, with his other hand he stroked the boys hair.

"I know a simple soldier boy,
who grinned at life in empty joy.
Slept soundly through the lonesome night,
Valiantly fought until he cried.
Put a bullet through my brain,
And none shall speak of me again."

The following gunshot was one that was etched in his memory, his comrades held their helmets before their chests and looked dejected. The dust clouds were slowly disappearing and a terrible scene revealed itself, even more rotting death. Stephen stepped on a platform so he could overlook the no man's land in front of the mountain, Corpses as far as his eye could see. Mutilated, decomposing and stinking corpses of fallen comrades, none he knew but he was sure there were many men around here who knew their friends were rotting away within their reach. After a few minutes he ordered his men to move out again, in a calm manner the started moving again. The atmosphere at the base wasn't any better, uncountable wounded men walked, sat and laid scattered around everywhere through the base. The field hospitals were full and Stephens men had to wait, sadly one of his men died of his injuries while they were waiting. Stephen saw men who were injured physically and others who were injured in the mind, they had a dazed thousand-yard stare as the docs called it. Others were raving and wandered about, Stephen was touched by the sight of it and had difficulty to process to much grief.

With the generals orders Stephens company was on patrolling duty the next day, somehow he was relieved to be able to leave the base. The company was walking on one of the trench walls, the men talked somewhat and weren't really giving any attention to their surroundings. Far it the distance they heard the sounds of firing cannons, not much later somewhere up ahead shells exploded and immediately the company was on edge. where the shelling was just a moment ago a man climbed upon the wall of the trench and stared shouting.

"Medic!!!.......Medic!!!" he kept shouting,

Stephen gave Carol a nod and she ran off towards the man, after minutes she reached the man and both disappeared back down into the trench. Again cannon firing in the distance, his guts told him something bad was about to happen. Shells hit the exact spot where the former bombardment took place only this time the explosions were considerably less loud, damped in fact. In no-time green foggy clouds spread out, Stephen's heart raced as he realized what just happened. The Sheromians, who weren't so stingy with chemical weapons, shelled them with gas shells. "GAS!!... GAS!!" He shouted whilst quickly grabbing his own gas mask. When the entire company had their gasmasks in front of their faces they ran to the spot where disaster struck.

When they arrived at the trench they saw what was left of the company stationed there was lying on the bottom of the trench, victims of the gas. Black faces, tunic and shirt were ripped open at their necks in a last desperate fight for air. Many of them were idle, while others were still crawling and showed convulsions in the most horrifying agony Stephen did ever see. Some were also wounded and blood was still flowing from their open wounds. Then he saw Carol, she was massaging her throat. Stephen doubted she knew, of felt, that she had only one hand left and that there was only a stump where her other hand had been. With that stump she worked her throat like her hand was still there, the blood that came from the wound flowed over her face and neck... Stephens knees gave out beside her, his knees sucked stuck in the mud. "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" He screamed as he was shaking and crying, he lifted her head and laid it in his lap. His hand was stroking her hair, while his other hand tried to pull away her stump arm. Her glassy eyes looked right through him whilst the gesture with her hand and stump was still very furious. "Can you hear me!" He shouted, but she gave no reaction and her glass eyed didn't change nor blinked at all. Stephen grabbed his sidearm and his arm felt heavy, it shook heavily as he pulled it from his holster. He pointed the gun at her head, tears mingled with the dust on his face as he pulled the trigger. "BANG!!!" Stephens heart bled dry.

Days and weeks passed by where nothing happened, it was shelling a bit here and there. Life in the trenches was like living as a caveman, in little muddy dug out burrows. When the men crept into their burrows where the temperature was more pleasant, lice came from their shelters in the clothes and gnawed on their skin. While they were physically and mentally completely exhausted, because of the lice they could not sleep. The battle-weary soldiers called them their bosom friends, they were always there no matter what. When the men left their hide outs it was the vast graveyard that greeted them, a carpet of corpses where alien like vermin feasted. After weeks in the blood-filled trenches the men did not brush away the flies anymore, nor blanch however fierce the hum of passing shells. The mud, they slept in it, ate in it. Kilometer after kilometer in stretched, a sea of stinking mud, created by the blood of millions. The mud was where the dead found their grave, and the wounded died in it. Men slipped over the edges of enormous shell craters filled with mud and blood... On both sides of the trench was the waste of war, an arm over here and a leg over there, it was a nightmare. Finally the break of dawn, a hopeless break of dawn. Shell craters and more mud. Upturned rifles with bayonets pointed to the sky, they marked the places where the men died or were sunk in the mud.

Terry started crying out of the blue, Stephen and Brian first didn't realize it was him. When Terry wandered by crying and cursing the gods Stephen woke up from his hopeful nightmare and woke Brian too by jogging Brian, both looked at their friend without any further emotion. They grabbed him and dragged him down to the base, tiredly they entered it and dropped their friend off by the first field hospital they saw. The general greeted them as he recognized Stephens face, he tried to shake hands but Stephen ignored it completely.

"Good day to you Stephen, how's the front line holding up." The general asked kindly, while he stood proudly in his clean generals uniform.

"Frontline's fine." Stephen replied as he spit down on the ground and looked at the field hospital where doctors dragged Terry out and addressed a nearby high ranked officer.
The officer talked to Terry who was an officer as well, when he didn't talked back the officer became mad.

"Another poor fellow suffering from mutism and fugue." The general said as he shook his head.

The officer punched Terry on his cheek brutally, Terry cried.

"Officers don't break!" The officer barked, punching Terry even more. Terry fell down to his knees whilst holding his head with his hands, opening his mouth but no sound emerged. The officer grabbed his sidearm and placed it on Terry's head. "You coward, you just want to be sent home, don't you?" Terry tried to shout again. "DON'T YOU!!" The officer shouted as he shook his gun, a shock went through the bystanders. "NOOO!!" Terry suddenly screamed.

"I know you could talk, good boy." The officer said while giving Terry a pat on the shoulder, after a quick glance he walked away.

"They tend to start talking when they fear death." The general said amused.

Without any further attention to the general Stephen and Brian walked to Terry and grabbed him from the ground, they helped him as they walked away towards the exit of the camp.
"As I said to Carol once." Stephen suddenly said after a brief moment. "Who is the enemy really?"

After weeks the day of the great offensive was finally there, the day they were going over the top and bring the fight to the enemy. The offensive where Stephens team was supposed to enter the enemy base and capture their general, an easy mission as general Heinkel stated on Empire Television.

"We have their base surrounded, they have nowhere to run."

In reality their base was so well fortified that an assault was almost doomed to fail, the cost would be extremely high but they were going to attack anyway. For hours now the preparations were going on, companies were formed and lieutenants had their company flags on their backs, not Stephen of course for he had a secret mission. The general was standing next to him looking out over no man's land, when he made sure Stephen was well outfitted for the mission ahead he moved on to other lieutenants he commanded. The enemy must have noticed their sudden outbreak of activity and started raining down shells on the besiegers, nonetheless Stephens men stood together. Several moments passed as Brian and Terry walked up to him, Brian had his company flag proudly raised on his back.
"I wish you all the best Brian." Stephen said and nodded. "You too Terry, you'll do a good job on suppressing the enemy when we return."

Brian was given his own regiment after his heroic action on earth and his exemplary skill in managing personnel, the 12th artillery regiment. Their objective was a hill right in between the mountain and the trenches, from there they had an superior firing position for their heavy plasma cannons and a chance to take out many enemy artillery cannons and maybe even their surface to space defense. Terry was replaced to another company after his cowardly behavior and didn't had the honor to participate in the attack, instead he was to stay behind and cover any troops that returned from a successful mission or shoot anyone who fled, friend or foe. The three friends wished each other all the best luck in the universe to bring their missions to a success, thereafter they returned to their unit.

Stephen closed his eyes as all the men stood waiting silently for the signal to attack, before his eyes he saw his life passing by. His father who was blown to bits, his tortured mother, his dying sister and a terribly suffocating Carol, his blood began to boil due to the hate he felt towards the Sheromians. Somewhere he didn't care if he would die anymore, he found peace with the idea of not returning because somewhere within him he felt he was bound to die in there. Maybe a random shell would hit him eventually after all these weeks, maybe machinegun fire would mow him down. Minutes passed, long silent minutes until finally he heard the signal beep over his radio. At first he couldn't believe it but it seemed that every other officer had heard it too as they began to move as well, Stephen climbed on top of the wall and looked at his men.

"This is it men! Our moment of glory, where we all have been waiting for. For the federation, for humanity.... EVER ONWARD, OVER THE TOP, ATTAAAACCCKKK!!!! TO VICTORY!" He shouted as his men began to climb the top as well.

All the other units began to emerge from the trench as well, within a short moment the wheel of battle was set in motion. The soldiers battle cries set fire to their hearts, their faces were like the faces of a pack of hungry wolves. With their rifles in their hands and their bayonets attached they stormed the enemy fort, their number was beyond the counting. Randomly men raised their rifle up into the air and things like "For the federation... ever onward" encouraging their battle brothers, the fury of the attack was something Stephen had never felt so strong before and proudly followed the example of this free for all death rush. But the monstrous anger of the enemy artillery was relentless, a heavy shell exploded close to Stephen. Unless some more unfortunate soldiers Stephen was only blown to the right where he landed in a pile of corpses and was almost trampled. When he stood up he saw Brian somewhere up ahead on the foot of the hill he was supposed to hold, he pulled men from the mud and put them right on their feet whilst driving them up the hill. The machines dragging the plasma cannons had difficulty climbing the hill as well but Stephen was confident Brian would succeed in his Endeavor. "Don't linger! Keep on the offensive!" he shouted as some of his men who were crouching up the hill where, in the meanwhile, the enemy had taken defensive positions. Some of Brian's men didn't even had a weapon anymore and attacked the enemy with bare hands, throwing the enemy down the hill where they were killed by others. As Stephen started running again he passed exhausted and limbless men, others were wandering about like mindless zombies. Stephen ignored those men and ran ever onwards catching up with his company, in the distance he noticed an entrance into the mountain from which Sheromians where pouring out. His company clashed with the enemy using bullets, bayonets, hands, feet and nails to kill the foe. Humans jumped their opponent and took them to the ground, fighting and crawling through the mud they tried to master their enemy. Stabbed them like voodoo dolls, mutilating their enemy with bitter ferocity before they killed them. Sheromians shot humans right off their kinsman in a desperate attempt to save them. Stephen was running along other committed evil faces as they stormed their foe whilst roaring their ferocious battle cry, the sharp points of their bayonets point forward like a deadly wave of blades. They did not shoot, it would make them an easy stationary target. They had to come close to the entrance where they were outside the reach of artillery and crossfire, a major weak spot of the enemy where the battle was man to man. Stephen bashed into an enemy, planting his shoulder against the chin of the enemy and stabbed his bayonet right through him. The bayonet obliterated the spine of his enemy and when he drew his weapon back out of the body it fell to his knees, Stephen rammed his enemies head with the back of his rifle and moved on to his next victim who turned his back towards him. Stephen cut the back of his foe, he made a deep open cut from its shoulder to its hip and the Sheromian fell forward. Stephen knelt down and aimed for a target, A doubting Sheromian was lingering for a second. "BANG!" and shot his knee right off, the Sheromian fell to the ground and tried to stop the bleeding with his hands. The man next to Stephen slit the underbelly of a foe, its intestines and other entrails slid out, the enemy soldier tried to catch them and looked terrified for his vain attempt to push his inner body back in. The enemies that were coming from the entrance in the mountain saw the determined flood of humans and fled back in, probably to set up a perimeter elsewhere. Stephen quickly pulled his men out of the mud and drove them towards the entrance along with other soldiers who were lingering about, it didn't matter from which company or regiment they were as long as they could fight. Before they entered the mountain Stephen looked back one more time to see how Brian was doing, artillery was hammering down on the mountain and energy shields defending the plasma cannons. The plasma cannons returned fire and their big blue drops of plasma fire blasted off parts of the mountain in an attempt to reach the guns hidden within. In the distance the next wave of humans climbed out of the trenches and from holes in the mountain Sheromians started their counter attack. Stephen and his men entered the belly of the beast through a dark and stinking hole in the mountain.

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Thu Dec 19, 2013 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Deep into the mountain they moved, following a path leading to the heart of it. All of the men were focused and kept their eyes peeled, the lights and both sides created just enough light to see the path. Their ranks were increased by some men from the second wave catching up with them, they quickly greeted their kinsmen and followed their example. Along the sides on the ground were dead or drunk Sheromians, Stephens men killed every enemy who was breathing. After a long march they heard Sheromian voices in the distance, cheering and shouting. When they came around the corner in front of them was a gigantic hall where a massive Sheromian mob had gathered, The noise was deafening and suddenly muted as a figure on a stage raised his hand. Stephen suddenly understood why they didn't encountered a Sheromian on their way down here, they probably were organizing a counter attack. Thousands and thousands of Sheromians stood in formation staring silent at their general, he told something in a language Stephen couldn't understand.

"Sir, is that their general?" A soldier next to Stephen asked silently.

"I suppose so, I'm not certain though. Never saw a Sheromian general before, as far as I know this could also be just an officer." Stephen replied.

He had to make a plan quickly, hundreds of casualties every minute and Brian was still on that hill. The Sheromians cheered again and some kind of tumult was among their ranks, Stephen had to make use of the noise they generated. He quickly gave his squad leaders the order to spread out and take as much men from other groups who weren't originally his company to follow them. Silently they infiltrated into the hall and took out any guard that was patrolling here with their silenced sidearm's, they spread out along the entire back of the hall and hid behind chunks of rocks and piles of bodies. Here they waited for Stephens sign to open fire and throw anything they had at the enemy, engineers and heavy weapons teams grabbed all explosions they could find. Stephen took the sniper rifle from his squads sniper and deployed it on a rock, cautious he marked his target and calmed his breathing. He had only one chance to shoot and hope this was indeed their general, one chance to cripple him and bring him back alive. If he missed he would be the one responsible for it, not his sniper. That's the way he wanted it, Stephen closed his left eye and looked through his scope again. He had their general in his scope and aimed at his knee, Stephens favorite spot to cripple an opponent. Carefully he rested his finger on the trigger and held his breath as he followed the general as he walked slowly on the stage, when he reached the end of it he held still. Stephen acted immediately, the echo of the heavy sniper rifle lasted for seconds as the knee of the Sheromian general was totally splintered. A roar of pain answered the echo of the rifle as their general knocked back and collapsed, This was the sign all squad leaders had been waiting for.

The Sheromian mob in the middle of the hall panicked as the humans opened fire from all sides, merciless they mowed down their foe. The Sheromians started their counter attack and with fierce roars they ran towards the covered humans, when they came close they experienced another terrible human trick. When the Sheromians closed in the humans threw all kinds of explosives with timers attached at their foe, explosions shook the entire hall and rubble and dust started to come down from the roof. Stephen ordered his sniper to target every enemy that came close to the enemy general, as soon as he got the order he deployed his rifle and started targeting and shooting.

"Ok boys, we're going to get him!" Stephen shouted at his squad who were firing at the enemy as well.

His squad members gave him scared and disbelieving looks. "You mean like going down there and drag him back here?" one of the soldiers asked.

"There's a bright kid." Stephen replied. "Now grab your rifle and follow me!" He ordered while he already started to run.

His soldiers obeyed and followed their leader, the bravest man amongst them. Lucky for them another squad noticed their movement and began to cover them, targeting any Sheromian that came close. Without shooting or fighting he ran up the stairs onto the stage where their crippled general laid with a dozen dead bodies near it, his sniper did a good job. Quickly he grabbed the generals legs who screamed in pain when his tortured knee was abruptly being twisted, Stephen ignored him and started dragging him back to the stairs. His soldiers arrived and three men helped carrying the prisoner of war, one lifted his head and the others on both sides. Sandy, the second in command of his squad, nodded at him.

"We'll stay here and hold them off as long as we can, you start running sir!" She shouted to overcome the sound of the gunshots and explosions. "Roo-hah!!" The rest of the squad replied, took aim and started shooting at the enemy.

Stephen nodded back at her and started running, as they run back up towards where they came from the Sheromians were chasing them. Again and again the closest enemy to Stephen was shot down, just a few meters left until the tunnel back out. After a few long seconds they reached it, Stephen breathed heavily as he looked back one last time. His squad was in melee with the enemy, soon they would be overrun.
"A noble death..." Stephen thought to himself, he would honor their memory for the rest of his life.

"Ok you guys!" he shouted to a group of soldiers "Follow me, come on!"

The soldiers abandoned their posts and rallied at their lieutenant, then they moved back into the dark tunnel from which they came. As they moved on in a quick and steady pace they heard the sound of battle become less and less, after some time they didn't hear anything but their own running boots and their hearts pounding in their throats. Adrenaline kept them going and forget the weight of the unconscious Sheromian general, Stephen felt a sparkle of hope that maybe he and his men might even make it out alive. If they were able to not being hunted down by the Sheromian and survive no man's land on their way back.

After a solid half hour running the Sheromian general regained his consciousness, he yelled and screamed for help. With a furious look he pierced Stephen's who was carrying his legs, in a vain attempt he tried to struggle only to remind himself of his knee wound. He roared again in pain so loud that it deafened Stephen and the 30 men with him, Stephen was sure that the chasing Sheromians could hear it. Apparently a group of Sheromians up ahead heard it too as a gunshot followed by a humming noise made one of his soldiers go down, the impact of the bullet knocked him back and dragged another man with him to the ground.

"Take cover" Stephen ordered, while trying to transcend the sudden enflamed sounds of a gunfight.

Stephen wondered if he actually had to say it, men were trying to take cover where they could anyway. They fired at the lights caused by the enemies gun barrels as they fired at them, Within seconds a heavy fight was going on. Stephen was nervous as the assumed he was stuck between two Sheromian forces, he feared that they would soon be sandwiched. As time dragged on more and more men fell in this dark and bloody hailstorm of bullets, cover was hard to find and quickly the number of Stephens company dropped as the body count rose. Up in the distance he heard the enemy general barking an order.

"Attach bayonets, make ready to charge."

"Ready to charge? with bayonets?" Stephen thought, "Only humans would give such an order."

Stephen got out of cover and put his hands around his mouth. "Friendly fire! FRIENDLY FIRE!!!"

after a few seconds both sides stopped firing, "Be careful, incoming friendly forces!" Stephens shouted again and ordered his men to follow him with the Sheromian prisoner of war.

When they reached the other soldier they saw that they were indeed humans, both sides didn't know what to say and Stephen looked in the eyes of the pale officer.

"I.. I thought... I thought you were Sheromians, I heard one screaming." The officer said whilst looking away in shame.

"You could not have known that we were humans, this is a terrible accident." Stephen replied

"You know what?" The officer said again. "You go on with you mission an bring him back, we'll buy you as much time as possible if they're chasing you."

Stephen nodded and ordered his men to move out, all this time none of the men spoke a word. All were seemingly shocked by this blue on blue accident, they kept to themselves and tried to process this weird incident.

They reached the exit, a sinister bright light entered the cave. As they ran out the sun blinded their eyes and they had to wait a few seconds for their eyes to adapt. Stephen quickly checked the enemy generals life signs, his heart was beating and he was breathing though he seemed to be unconscious. Alive enough for Stephens part and he ordered his man to make ready, back in the cave they heard the soft growling of Sheromians.

"We'll do it for our lost comrades.... for those who crossed with us, but will never cross again."

Silently they lifted the Sheromian general from the ground and started running as fast as the terrain of bodies and rocks allowed them to. They were the only ones left in no man's land, not a living soul as far as they could see. But when they advanced Stephen saw the hill where Brian was still giving the enemy a hard time. Behind them an uncountable amount of Sheromians ran out of the cave like a horde of ants, they were greeted by machine gun fire from Brian's strongpoint on the hill. Stephen and his men reached the foot of Brian's hill, Stephen noticed Brian and they waved at each other. Sadly Stephen didn't had the chance to meet his friend as they both had different objectives, Stephen had to deliver his precious cargo and Brian was to hold the line. After a minute or so there was an artillery barrage so massive it turned Brian's hill into a fountain of mud, shells were hammering down on Brian like an artillery machine gun that kept going for minutes. Stephen hoped for the best but in his heart he knew that his friend was gone, he drove his men to a greater speed as their covering fire was gone. To make things worse the Sheromian machine gunners tracked Stephen's group and started shooting at them. Stephen crossed his fingers as he began to sprint, his men's faces were gravely pale. In the distance they saw men looking over the top of the trenches, when they saw Stephens company they began to cheer and encourage the heroes in no man's land. One of Stephens men was shot in his back, he fell down and was moaning and screaming and begged for his friends to wait for him. With pain in their hearts they moved on because they could not linger now, not now they had almost achieved their objective. But brave soldier come climbing out of the trench and passed Stephen and his company towards the wounded man, they ran to aid their fallen battle brother who could almost reach for the finish line. They lifted him and carried him back to the trench, encouraged by the cheering and shooting men in the trench. The enemy was close now, but were shot upon by the men in the trench. Another one of Stephens men fell with his face down in the mud, but almost before he hit the ground he was grabbed at his feet and dragged along. They reached the trench, the relief was gigantic and the mood was suddenly great. The greedy men fired at the Sheromians, others helped Stephen to carry the enemy general to the base. They sank into the mud and as always the last few steps were the hardest, but al last.... they arrived at the base, followed by hundreds of men. The general ran over to Stephen as soon as he saw the breathing enemy he congratulated Stephen. Stephen was breathing heavily on his hands and knees, then he sat down with his back against some crates. He was exhausted and his mind was all blurry, the reality of Brian's death was slowly getting through to him.
As if things couldn't get any worse a group of journalists came running towards Stephen, The general made a vain attempt to stop them but they were too many.
"Sir, Sir! How do you feel now that you've ensured victory?"

Stephen looked up in a shock. "What the hell do I have to do now?" he thought.

"Well.... I..."

"Sir, how many Sheromians did you kill?" Another one asked

Stephen quickly tried to pay attention to the newly asked question, he tried to recall the number of kills.

"Sir? did you hear me." He asked again, Stephen suddenly woke from his deep thought.

"Please leave me be, I cannot talk right now."

One of the reporters stepped forward and stood only a few centimeters in front of Stephen and asked very intimidating. "What if it turns out the prisoner is not the enemy general, would that mean you failed? That you did it all for nothing?"

Stephen blinked his eyes twice, something switched inside his mind. He grabbed his side arm and put the gun on the reporters head and shot him.... a contact shot. He randomly aimed at another reporter and shot him as well, shouting and screaming he shot wildly. The reported fled in fear and tried to find some sort of cover. The general grabbed Stephen and tried to stop him, he cried for a medic. Two medics came running as they heard the general shouting, uncertain they looked at the mad lieutenant. Stephen stopped shooting, one body at his feet and another one fell in his attempt to flee. Stephen cried as he lowered his gun, the medics disarmed him and held him tight.

"You're coming with us" They said

"NOO!!" Stephen screamed "I'm not mad! I'M NOT MAD!!!"

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Terry ordered the taxi driver to land his hover car in front of the Hendrickson revalidation centre, with a soft bump it touched the ground and after paying the driver he disembarked with a greet. He walked the lane towards the building while a cold wind pushed him to the left, Terry did his collar to prevent his neck from the cold and walked on towards the entrance. On both sides old leafless oak trees gave the scene an uncomfortable edge as their dark brown branches stood out sharply against the grey winter sky, gently they lulled in the wind while every now and then throwing a twig to the ground. Inside the environmental conditions we much more pleasant, there was no wind and the temperature was comfortable. The interior wasn't particularly hospital like, instead they used a lot of wood and upholstered furniture on a nice dark red carpet to make the place nice and cozy. Terry nodded to the receptionist lady behind her marmer desk as he hung his coat on the coat rack.

"Good morning madam, nasty weather outside, I can tell you that."

She nodded in return "Lucky for you you're inside now sir, how can I help you?".

"I came here to visit someone, a friend in fact. His name is Stephen Forrester." The woman behind the desk must have know him because she seemed a bit shocked when she heard his name.

"Something wrong madam?" He asked, and the woman looked up at him with wide eyes

"It's just that... sometimes I feel sorry when I see the most damaged ones walking around here, they don't look much alive you know? More like empty physical shells."

"I know" Terry replied "I've been there myself."

The woman looked a bit shocked while looking at the seemingly perfectly healthy man before her, nervously she pushed a button and summoned the doctor. "The doctor will be here any moment, please take a seat." She said while pointing at the bench at the other side of the hallway. There he sat and waited while he was doing some reading on his data pad, totally unaware by the sneaky glancing looks from behind her marmer desk.

He sat there for about five minutes until a man came walking down to him, Terry guessed his age was about 60 year. He had white hair and a beard with the same color, without any model in it. He was dressed in a delicate suit and from the looks of it this man had done well for himself. Terry shook hands with the man.

"Good morning mister, I'm doctor Blackwater. I heard you are here to visit your friend? If I'm not mistaken." He said while he gave him a warm look, this man was kindness in person.

"Good morning Doctor Blackwater, I'm Terry. And Indeed, I came to check up on my friend Stephen."

"Ah, Mr. Forrester. Well then, follow me." The man said as he walked back to where he came from, followed by Terry.

"How is he doing?" He asked as they climbed a stair.

"Not particularly well, I fear he's suffering from ptsd, his symptoms are quite bad and pretty serious." The old man climbed the stairs slowly, he was breathing heavily.

"what are his symptoms, sir?"

"Fugue, lack of emotions, staring and mutism." The doc walked slowly through the hallway, followed by Terry who was suddenly unsure if he actually wanted to see his friend like this.

Dr. Blackwater stopped in front of one of the doors and stood there listening for a while, after a brief moment he said.

"He's calm now, you are allowed to go inside... Just be careful ok? If anything happens just hit the red button next to his bed."

Terry nodded. The doctor opened the door for Terry and closed it after he walked in. He was alone now, alone with the creature sitting on the bed. Stephen sat there on his bed facing the wall, silent as the night he was and looked in the abyss. Terry slowly walked over to him, wondering if his friend knew he was here. Stephen didn't seem to react to the footsteps behind him, within and arms reach Terry stopped next to him an looked at his friend. Stephens hands were holding his ears like he was protecting them from a deafening volume of sound, his eyes blinking as if he was protecting them from blinding flashes of light. Terry felt sorry for the poor fellow on the bed, a physical shell that once was a close friend was now somewhere far away and deep within his own mind. His senses were blocked and Terry knew the movie of his experiences was constantly repeated on the back of his eyes, experiences that piled and piled and in the end caused him to break. Terry laid his hand on his friends shoulder and caused the movie to pause, with a shock Stephen turned his head and looked at him. For seconds he stared like a frightened deer, the uncertainty in his eyes confirmed that it seemed like his friend was no longer in this body. But nothing was less true, Stephen suddenly checked his pockets and got off his bed. When he stood in front of the window he saw a mountain looming in the distance, Terry was beside him and saw it too. They stood there for a few seconds looking at it, quickly Terry closed the curtains to prevent Stephen from looking at the mountain. Stephen began to check his pockets again, when he apparently couldn't find what he was looking for he began to panic a bit and lifted his mattress to search for "it". He calmed down when he found a piece of paper, cautiously he gave the paper to Terry who took it and looked at it. Stephen sat down on a chair and after a brief time the movie in his mind resumed whilst Terry investigated the piece of paper, it turned out to be a letter written by Stephen's hand.

so silently, everyone knows It'll remain.
For ever and a lifetime, to forget the pain.
so brutally, no pen could describe the feeling.
of friends dying, broken and bleeding.
so slowly, that all the clocks froze.
the path of death which you chose.
so silently, so lost, you left me.

I've heard so much, nothing comes through.
At night I cannot sleep, this is the due.
It's clear to me now that silence is your friend.
I remained, trying to make my stand.
too much seen that's where it went wrong.
now the words in my mind are on the tip of my tongue.

Terry looked at his friend who seemed to be so far away, but he noted a single tear on his friends cheek. Terry gently put the letter away and sat beside Stephen, he laid his hand on Stephens shoulder and whispered.

"I will help you my friend, and I will take you wherever you want to go. Even if it's the last thing I'll do, you have my word on that."

Stephen didn't respond but Terry knew he heard, he knew his friend was not mad but had just lost his tongue. He walked out of the room towards the doctor's office "I must find his tongue quickly, but where?" he asked himself. He reached the door labeled "Dr. Blackwater" And raised his hand to knock the door, just before his knuckles hit the wood he heard "Come in".

Terry did what was asked of him and entered the room with an uneasy feeling. "Sorry but, how did you know I was at your door?"

"I didn't, but I did know someone was due to the crack in the door" The doctor said whilst pointing at the crack.

Terry didn't know what to said and just stared dumbly.

"Please, take a seat" the doctor continued while looking over his glasses, he made an inviting gesture with his hand letting Terry know he was to sit down on the chair on the other side of the desk the doctor was sitting at.

"So, how was your visit? are you very shocked to find your friend in this condition?"

"Well, I'm not shocked to begin with, I've seen worse. Luckily for him he's an officer, else he would have been fusilladed on spot. I'm more concerned about the fact that he's in a madhouse while he's not mad at all."

The doctor laughed a bit while he said.

"Come now, you've seen his condition. Do you state that he shows normal behaviour?" while he sat down and looked at Terry over his glasses, finally he decided to put them off and laid them on the desk before him.

"Given his experience I think his reaction is quite natural, there are a lot of guys who have the same fate."

"And how come you think you know more about my patients than I do? are you a doctor?" The doctor said offended, he looked patronizing at Terry.

"As a matter of fact, I am. Though maybe not specialized in psychology, I do have adequate knowledge about this field. Not to mention my personal experiences, it gives me more than enough reason to demand the following." He looked at Dr. Blackwater seriously whilst holding his hands before his face with the tips of his fingers touching each other. Dr. Blackwater began to act a bit nervous, and shifted several times in his chair.

"In my pocket I have a legal document that grants me the rights to transfer one of your patients, Stephen Forrester. Ministry of defence wants to keep some cases internal, their reasons are clouded."
"I can't just go giving my patients away to everyone who claims to be a doctor, it's forbidden."

"Listen doctor, the army gets what the army wants and they want Stephen Forrester so they'll get Stephen Forrester, it would be unwise to resist both for you and your patients health."
Dr. Blackwater leaned over his desk and looked at Terry furiously. " Are you blackmailing me?"

"Does it matter?"

"Let me see those papers." The doctor demanded and as soon as Terry gave them he grasped them from his hands and began reading, for some time the doctor was totally focused on reading the document with frowning eyes.

"Alright, alright." He finally said. "But may I ask about the ministry of defenses motives to transfer Mr. Forrester?"

"I'm afraid those are classified."

Dr. Blackwater sighed whilst shaking his head in disapproval, then he signed the papers.

"There you are, he's yours Dr...?" he said as he gave Terry the papers.

"None of your business, now please help me to get him to my car." Terry said.

Both walked back to Stephens room, Terry was given a wheelchair so that he could bring Stephen to the taxi outside. Luckily Stephen didn't struggle at all so putting him down and drive him was a piece of cake. down the stairs they went and towards the exit, Terry had to stop abruptly due to a guy who was running through the hallway. He had wild black hair and in his hand he held a small ugly fighter spacecraft, Trying to mine everything he saw whilst shouting random words like "Data... Function... AI... Delegation....HA..HA..HA.."

"They found him hanging around on an asteroid" Dr. Blackwater said

"Poor fellow was waiting for his artificial friends, somehow they never showed up." He said with a tiny smile.

When the boy ran around the corner they proceeded their trip and when they reached the exit Dr. Blackwater stopped.

"Take good care of him now, Dr. Terry" he said.

With a greet and a smile Terry walked down the lane with his friend in the wheelchair in front of him. The cold winter wind blew in their faces, it was so cold that Terry felt like his nose would freeze off. Quickly he helped Stephen to enter the taxi and then he got in himself, rubbing his cold hands and nodding at Stephen. But Stephen only looked at the mountain in the distance, nothing else seemed to exist or seemed to be more important. Terry smiled softly and felt pleased to have his friend at his side. Terry grabbed a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to the taxi driver. "Please take me to these coordinates." he said and the taxi driver touched his navigation screen gently as he gave the computer the input. "It says that it is in the middle of a forest, sir."

"That's correct, please take me there... We're in quite a hurry."

The taxi driver drove off as requested towards a place in the middle of a forest, and with a steady pace the hover car flew over the top off the trees.

"I never had to fly to a place in the forest before, not sure why anyone would take a taxi over there." The driver said but Terry didn't answer, he focused on their destination and tried to notice the drop ship that was awaiting their return.

Later

Dr. Blackwater was sitting behind his desk just about to get back to work when he heard his receptionists voice over the intercom, cantankerous he listened to what she had to say. "Sir, there's an army official here asking for you."

"Another one? great... I'm on my way." Greatly annoyed he went all the way back to the main hall, curious about what they wanted from him now. When he walked through the door into the hall he was immediately greeted by a man in a sharp military uniform, with his hat under his arm.

"Good day to you Dr. Blackwater, I'm here on behalf of Lord-General Heinkel. A personal friend of the Lord-general was supposed to be treated here in your.... madhouse."

"And what is the name of this friend?" annoyed due to the fact that his revalidation centre was considered a madhouse.

"Stephen Forrester" The army official said, Dr.Blackwaters face turned pale.

"The Lord-general is most pleased with this man's actions and wishes to celebrate his promotions with his friends.... Something wrong doctor? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Last edited by Tsjernobyl on Sat Jan 11, 2014 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.